(Springer Series in Language and Communication) Anne E. Mills-The Acquisition of Gender - A Study of English and German - Springer (1986)

Springer Series in Language and Communication 20
Editor: W. J. M. Levelt
Springer Series in Language and Communication
Editor: W.J.M. Levelt
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Volume 7
Volume 8
Volume 9
Volume 10
Volume 11
Developing Grammars By W. Klein and N. Dittmar
The Child's Conception of Language 2nd Printing
Editors: A. Sinclair, RI. Jarvella, and W.l.M. Levelt
The Logic of Language Development in Early Childhood
By M. Miller
Inferring from Language By L.G.M. Noordman
Retrieval from Semantic Memory By W.
Semantics from Different Points of View
Editors: R. Bauerle, U. Egli, and A. von Stechow
Lectures on Language Performance By Ch. E. Osgood
Speech Act Classification By Th. Ballmer and W. Brennenstuhl
The Development of Metalinguistic Abilities in Children
By D. T. Hakes
Modelling Language Behaviour By R. Narasimhan
Language in Primates: Perspectives and Implications
Editors: J. de Luce and H. T. Wilder
Volume 12 Concept Development and the Development of Word Meaning
Editors: Th.B. Seiler and W. Wannenmacher
Volume 13 The Sun is Feminine
A Study on Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children
By T. Taeschner
Volume 14 Prosody: Models and Measurements
Editors: A. Cutler and D. R. Ladd
Volume 15 Metalinguistic Awareness in Children
Theory, Research, and Implications
Editors: W.E. Tunmer, C. Pratt, and M.L. Herriman
Volume 16 Dynamic Aspects of Language Processing
Focus and Presupposition
By J. Engelkamp and H. D. Zimmer
Volume 17 Language Awareness and Learning to Read
By 1. Downing and R Valtin
Volume 18 Cognition, Metacognition, and Reading
By D. L. Forrest-Pressley and T. G. Waller
Volume 19 Young Children's Knowledge of Relational Terms
Some Ifs, Ors, and Buts
By L. A. French and K. N eJson
Anne E. Mills
The Acquisition
of Gender
A Study of English and German
With 14 Figures
Berlin Heidelberg New York
London Paris Tokyo
Dr. ANNE E. MILLS
Department of Language Studies
College of Ripon and York
St. John
Lord Mayor's Walk
York, Great Britain
Series Editor
Professor Dr. WILLEM J. M. LEVELT
Max-Planck-Institut fur Psycholinguistik
Wundtlaan I
6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
ISBN Springer-Vedag Berlin Heidelberg New York
ISBN 0-387-16740-4 Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Mills, Anne E. The acquisition of gender.
(Springer series in language and communication; 20) Bibliography; p. 1. German language-Gender.
2. English language-Gender. 3. German language-Acquisition. 4. English language-Acquisition.
5. German language-Grammar, Comparative-English. 6. English language-Grammar, Com-
parative-German. 7. Language acquisition. 8. Children-Language. L Title. II. Series. PF3211.M5 1986
435 86-13945
This work is subject to copyright. AU rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically those of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduc-
tion by photocopying machine or similar means, and storage in data banks. Under 54 of the German
Copyright Law, where copies are made for other than private use, a fee is payable to "Verwertungs-
geseUschaft Wort", Munich.
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1986
Printed in Germany
The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of
a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and
therefore free for general use.
Typesetting: Fotosatz GmbH, Beerfelden.
Offsetprinting and BOOkbinding: Konrad Triltsch, Graphischer Betrieb, Wurzburg
2131/3130-543210
Preface
This study of gender was conceived when I first took up the position of
lecturer in linguistics at the University of Tiibingen in 1975. My particular in,
terest in gender arose out of the work with German children and adults con-
ducted in the context of preparing my doctoral dissertation for the University
of York; my position at the University of Tiibingen has given me the
opportunity to carry out the necessary research in both Germany and Britain.
The empirical investigations reported in this study were begun in my first year
in Tiibingen and continued over a period of 7 years. In this connection, I
would like to express my thanks to the staff and pupils of all the schools who
participated in the testing: Kindergarten Waldhauser-Ost, Kindergarten
Winkelwiese, Grundschule Wanne, Grundschule Waldhauser-Ost, and Albert
Schweitzer Schule (Tiibingen); Somerford Junior and Infants School and
Twynham Junior and Infants School (Christchurch, GB); Burdyke Infants,
Badger Hill Junior and Infants School and Joseph Rowntree Junior School
(York, GB). Thanks must also go to the families of Georg, Hanna and Gisela
and of course to the children themselves, who allowed the intrusion of
recording equipment so regularly into their homes. I am also grateful to the
staff and students of the Universities of Tiibingen, York and Manchester who
cooperated in several of the investigations.
This work was first submitted in December, 1984, to the Neuphiloiogische
Fakultiit of the University of Tiibingen in order to obtain the qualification of
Habilitation. In its preparation, I have obtained great help and support from
my friends and colleagues, especially of course from Prof. D. A. Reibel.
Special mention must be made of Dr. W. Glaser of the Psychoiogisches
Institut, Tiibingen, who offered considerable help with the statistical analysis,
and of Prof. P. Werth (University of Brussels), Dr. David Warden (University
of Strathclyde), Dr. Werner Deutsch (Max Planck Institut, Nijmegen) and
Laura Lane (University of Tiibingen), who gave helpful criticism of the
manuscript. I am also indebted to Prof. Coseriu, Prof. Kaminski and Prof.
Reis, all of the University of Tiibingen, who made constructive proposals for
the preparation of this manuscript for publication. Particular thanks go to the
secretarial staff and student assistants of Lehrstuhi Linguistik I for their help
and patience atevery stage of the work and to Frau Netuschil for her careful
typing of the final version. ANNE E. MILLS
Contents
Introductiou . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1 Gender in Linguistic Description ...................... 6
Ontology and Development of Gender ............................ 6
The Grammatical Status of Noun Classification Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Theories of Opposition and Markedness .......................... 9
Chapter 2 A Comparison of the Gender Systems in English
and German .................................................. 12
Parts of Speech Affected by Gender .............................. 13
Semantic Rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Natural Gender Rule ........................................ 16
The Animacy and Personal Rule .............................. 17
Common Gender Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Personification Rule ......................... .".............. 23
Other Semantic Rules ....................................... 26
Morphological Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Derivational Suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Noun Compounds .......................................... 30
Phonetic Rules ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Interaction of the Rule Types ................................ 34
Function ..................................................... 36
Anticipation of Content ..................................... 36
Marking of the Onset of a Noun Phrase ........................ 36
Distinction of Singular and Plural ............................. 37
Lexical Structuring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Anaphoric Reference ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Deictic Reference ........................................... 38
Functional Importance of the Male/Female Opposition . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Summary .................................................... 41
VIII Contents
Chapter 3 Rules and Speakers' Behaviour ....................... .
The Psychological Status of Morphological and Phonetic Rules of
Gender Assignment of German Nouns ........................... .
Evidence from Loan Words ................................. .
The Experimental Testing of the Use of Phonetic Rules in Gender
Assignment in Adult German Speakers ........................ .
The Psychological Status of Semantic Rules of Gender Assignment ... .
Evidence from Loan Words ................................. .
Conflict of Semantic and Grammatical Gender in German ....... .
A Study of Metaphorical Extension in German ................. .
Frequency of English Pronoun Forms and a Study of the Use of
Generic 'he' in English Children's Literature ................... .
The Psychological Status of Unmarked Terms .................... .
Summary and Conclusions ..................................... .
Chapter 4 The Acquisition of Gender in Children ................ .
Introduction ................................................. .
The Acquisition of Formal Rules in German ...................... .
Hypotheses ............................................... .
Observational Acquisition Data .............................. .
Indefinite Article ......................................... .
Definite Article .......................................... .
V ocabulary Analysis ...................................... .
Gender with Suffixes and Compounds ....................... .
Gender and Plural ........................................ .
Relative Pronouns and Question Words ..................... .
Experimental Investigation .................................. .
Experimental Testing of the Selection of the Definite Article for
Real Words by 5- to 6-Year-Old German Children ............. .
Experimental Testing of the Use of Phonetic Rules in 7- to
8-Year-Old German Children .............................. .
Summary and Conclusions .................................. .
The Acquisition of Semantic Rules in English and German .......... .
The Acquisition of the Animacy and Common Gender Rule ...... .
Hypotheses ............................................. .
Observational Acquisition Data ............................ .
The Use of Pronouns Referring to Animates and Inanimates in a
Production Task by 5- to 10-Year-Old English and German
Children ................................................ .
The Use of Pronouns Referring to Animates and Inanimates in an
'Animating' Context Compared in English Adults and in 9- to
10-Year-Old Children ..................................... .
Summary and Conclusions ................................ .
Acquisition of the Natural Gender Rule ....................... .
43
43
43
45
50
50
51
53
55
57
59
61
61
62
62
63
64
67
71
72
74
75
77
78
79
85
86
86
86
87
90
95
97
98
Contents
Hypotheses ............................................. .
Observational Acquisitiou Data ............................ .
The Use of Pronouns Referring to Sex-Marked Persons in a
Production Task by 3- to 4-Year-Old English and German
Children ................................................ .
Summary and Conclusions ................................ .
Implications for Explanatory Theories in Child Language Acquisition .
The Interaction of Formal and Semantic Rules in Acquisition ., ... .
The Relative Notion of 'Clear Rule' .......................... .
Chapter 5 Psychological Gender ............................... .
Language and Thought ........................................ .
An Investigation of the Interrelationship of Grammatical Gender and
Sex Assignment in English and German .......................... .
An Investigation of Sex Assignment in Children's Literature ...... .
Experimental Testing of Sex Assignment ...................... .
The Testing of Sex Attributes ................................... .
Chapter 6 Conclusions ....................................... .
Appendices .................................................. .
References .................................................. .
Subject Index
IX
98
99
101
109
109
109
114
115
117
117
120
120
122
130
140
142
145
156
167
Introduction
It could be expected that this book would begin with a general discussion of
language acquisition and its principles. Since this has been done by a consider-
able number of authors and at considerable length elsewhere, I will not
attempt such a review, but will restrict myself to setting out as concisely as
possible the working framework which directed the organization and inter-
pretation of the research to be reported.
Studies in child language acquisition have both a descriptive value and a
theoretical explanatory value. The comparison of acquisition in two lan-
guages, that is, the cross-linguistic approach to language acquisition, has the
primary goal of providing a sounder basis for theories of language acquisi-
tion. It is assumed that common principles of language acquisition exist inde-
pendently of the language to be learned and independently of the language
learning situation. This was even recognized by the Sterns in their introduc-
tion to the diary study of the language acquisition of their children first
published in 1907. Although they report on the learning of German, they
emphasize the general nature of the language acquisition process and the pos-
sibility of taking evidence from other languages (Stern & Stern, 1928, p. 3).
A comparison between two or more languages shows clearly where simi-
larities exist in the acquisition process, so that it is possible to reflect on what
the common principles of acquisition underlying the similar behaviour may
be. The similarities in acquisition between languages point to the formulation
of putative universals. The differences in acquisition are, however, just as in-
formative by high-lighting the effects of different structure and function on
the acquisition process. Each language presents a different problem for the
child in that it has properties which are distinct from those of other languages.
When acquisition is compared in an area where the languages involved have
differing structures, the effect of this different structure can be assessed. In
the introductory chapter to The Crosslinguistic Study oj Language Acquisi-
tion, Slobin writes: "The crosslinguistic method can be used to reveal both
developmental universals and language-specific developmental patterns in the
iuteraction of form and content" (Slobin, 1986a).
In this study, the cross-linguistic method is applied to the area of gender,
comparing acquisition of this area in English and German. The two gender
systems have some features in common, for example the natural gender rule,
2
Introduction
but also many distinctive features, such as the number of parts of speech on
which gender is marked. In these areas of similarity and difference, the im-
portance of the various features can be judged from the similarities and differ-
ences occurring in acquisition.
When similarities are found in acquisition, these can be attributed to uni-
versal principles of acquisition. Different theoretical approaches formulate
such universals in different ways. Within the nativist framework, universal
principles of acquisition are seen as innate behaviour resulting from an innate
language-learning capacity (Chomsky, 1965, pp. 27 - 37). The language ac-
quisition device is seen as one of the faculties of the mind, but distinct from
the others in that it is specific for language. Universals in the structure of lan-
guages are seen as related to the structure of the language acquisition device.
A knowledge of these universals is attributed to the child, although this need
not logically be the case (see Comrie, 1981).
The attempts to find evidence that putative linguistic universals (formu-
lated within the transformational generative framework) have their direct
equivalents in acquisition universals have not been successful. For example,
the specified subject condition postulated by Chomsky (1977, p. 90) to explain
the reference of the pronoun each other does not appear to be used in children
interpreting sentences of the type the chickens said that the pigs tickled each
other; children aged between 4 and 6 make the frequent error of interpreting
each other as referring to the subject of the main clause, that is chickens (see
Clahsen, 1982a, pp. 16 -17, for a further discussion of this example). It need
not, however, be the case that such universals can be observed in child
language behaviour. If this premise is accepted, then the influence of the
innate language-learning capacity is unobservable, and the nativist theory
becomes uninteresting in explaining child language acquisition.
A different theoretical framework comes from the direction of psycholo-
gy, within which universals in language acquisition are related to universals in
cognitive development. No language-specific capacity is postulated; language
acquisition principles are to be accounted for by principles of learning in
general. The name of Piaget is most commonly associated with this theory; he
maintained that language development can be explained in terms of general
cognitive development (Piaget, 1959). As Atkinson (1982, pp. 171-205)
argues, however, it is necessary to find evidence of learning principles which is
independent of the evidence of language learning, but from which it can be
argued that the general principles clearly underlie and fully explain the lan-
guage-learning principles. Greenfield, Nelson and Saltzman (1972) have at-
tempted to relate developments in a non-linguistic area with developments in
language structure. They compare strategies used by young children in playing
with and combining cups with combinations of elements in sentence types.
They wish to see "a single competence underlying certain forms of action and
grammar" (1972, p. 308). The acquisition of this competence results in non-
linguistic and linguistic behaviour, but it is not clear that the non-linguistic
behaviour must necessarily appear before the linguistic behaviour for the
Introduction 3
claim that they result from a single competence to be true. In some cases,
cognitive development seems to precede and explain language development
(e.g. Karmiloff-Smith, 1979); in other cases, the linguistic development takes
place considerably later than the related cognitive development (e.g. Mills,
1986), while in still other cases, the cognitive development occurs concurrently
with the linguistic development (e.g. Gopnik, 1984). As with the nativist
theory, no conclusive evidence of the correctness of the cognitive theory
exists. Slobin, who is usually strongly associated with this theory, has in fact a
modified version which explicitly includes some innate knowledge of
grammatical structures: 1
There are major pacesetters to language development, involved with the
poles of function and of form: (1) on the functional level, development is
paced by the growth of conceptual and communicative capacities, operating
in conjunction with innate schemas of cognition; and (2) on the formal level,
development is paced by the growth of perceptual and information-proces-
sing capacities, operating in conjunction with innate schemas of grammar
(Slobin, 1986a).
An aspect which is becoming increasingly more popular in the literature is
the role played by interaction in language acquisition (e.g. Wells, 1981). It is
rarely claimed that interaction can function as a total explanatory theory of
acquisition, and most research which places an emphasis in this area works
basically within the cognitive theory described above. The interest in interac-
tion stems from the claim that the acquisition of language functions is a pre-
requisite for the acquisition of language structures (see Bates, 1976; Miller,
1976); interaction is the context for the acquisition of these functions. Al-
though it is not explicitly claimed that interaction can explain the mechanisms
of the acquisition of the structures themselves, the focus on interaction in
some research is so intense as to make it appear that it has total explanatory
value.
The present study takes as its framework the cognitive approach de-
scribed above; within that framework, interaction and language input are also
considered for their possible influence. The features of the acquisition process
found in the area of gender will be discussed in reference to the various
theories and approaches, but it is not the goal of this work to seek absolute
proof or disproof of one or the other.
As stated earlier, studies in language acquisition also have a descriptive
value. In providing a descriptive account of the acquisition of a particular
area of language, it becomes possible to establish norms for the development
1 Slobin does not state from within which linguistic theory he would wish to make
claims about innate grammatical schemas, and in that respect, he leaves the door
open somewhat for behaviour which is unexplained on general cognitive grounds to
be put into an innate grammar category. His position needs to be more rigourously
stated.
4 Introduction
patterns in the individual language. In education and clinical practice, these
norms and the techniques of description developed in the investigation can be
used for diagnosis of children with language problems. This study also con-
tributes towards the description of acquisition in English and German. AI-
. though a great deal of research has been carried out on English (de Villiers &
de Villiers, 1986), work on gender in English is comparatively scarce. Very
little is known, however, about the acquisition of German in general. Until re-
cently, there existed only diary studies made at the turn of the century (e. g.
Stern & Stern, 1909) and a handful of experimental investigations (see Mills,
1986 for a review). This has meant that the basis for German diagnostic tests
has been totally inadequate and, in some cases, simply been transferred from
better-researched languages such as English (see Angermaier, 1968; Grimm,
1968; Clahsen, 1983). This study contributes towards providing a more de-
tailed description of the acquisition of German and thereby to the construc-
tion of better diagnostic tests.
Chapter 1 provides a description of gender in general terms, that is, not
specifically related to German or English. The status of gender in various
types of linguistic description is investigated, the views on gender as a
linguistic system are preseuted, together with a discussion of related notions
such as markedness. This discussion is kept brief and restricted to those points
which can be related to acquisition in terms of the predictions which can be
made about the acquisition process on the basis of the theoretical description.
Chapter 2 presents a comparative and contrastive description of the
gender systems of German and English. Any study in child language acquisi-
tion needs to have as its background a detailed description of the area to be
investigated, firstly, as a basis for knowing what the target behaviour of the
child is and, secondly, as a basis for making predictions about acquisition
when properties of the system to be learned are related to postulated acquisi-
tion principles. The gender systems for German and English have been fairly
well researched; this information is brought together, with some new insights,
under the headings of formal, semantic and functional properties of the
systems. These are then related to acquisition.
Chapter 3 examines the evidence for the psychological status of some
aspects of the linguistic description set out in the preceding chapter. This
evidence is taken from adults' language behaviour, experimental and observa-
tional, over and above the analysis of speech utterances, which has led to the
formulation of the linguistic descriptive rules. The linguistic behaviour in
adults which results from the differing psychological status of rules also forms
part of the input to the child and therefore can be seen as an influence on
acquisition. The child also learns to produce this linguistic behaviour, and so
it forms in turn a part of acquisition. Evidence of this type of language be-
haviour in adults has been collected for English and German to provide as
complete a background to the acquisition studies as possible.
Chapter 4 presents the acquisition data collected from German and Eng-
lish children. The data are organized according to the type of gender rules
Introduction
5
being investigated: firstly, the formal rules of gender assignment in German
and secondly, in English and German, the semantic rules of animacy and
natural gender. In each section, the data are divided into those collected from
longitudinal or cross-sectional observation and those collected from experi-
mentation. These two types of data are seen as complementary to one another
and both as essential to providing as complete an account of the acquisition
process as possible. Whereas observational studies provide detailed informa-
tion about children's language, such studies are very time-consuming and
therefore difficult to carry out with a group of children large enough to
generalize from. Experimentation, on the other hand, makes working with
larger groups more feasible and allows the detailed examination of particular
aspects which it is impossible, or at least difficult, to observe in spontaneous
utterances. A combination of data from both sources produces a fuller picture
of the acquisition process. In the fmal section of this chapter, the implications
for the validity of principles of language acquisition are considered.
Chapter 5 investigates the relationship between language and thought as
illustrated by the area of gender. The possible effect of the gender classifica-
tion system on the perception of sex-related features or "psychological"
gender is explored in a series of studies with both adults and children.
Chapter 6 contains the overall conclusions to be drawn from the research
and discusses implications for further work.
CHAPTER 1
Gender in Linguistic Description
Ontology and Development of Gender
There are many different types of noun classification systems. These systems
have different bases: Some are related to properties of the referents; others
have language-internal rules. Among the first type, properties of the referents
can be quite diverse. Some North American Indian languages classify accord-
ing to the shape and size of the referent. The Algonkian languages have a sys-
tem related to animacy and inanimacy (Bloomfield, 1946).2 Most Indo-Euro-
pean languages base their system on the natural sex distinction, hence the term
'gender'.
3
As the basis of a classification system, gender must therefore be
seen as one possibility among many.
Frequently, parallels are made between the phylogeny of a system and
structure in the young organism. If such a parallel is drawn, the origins of
noun classification systems can be made to make predictions about the ac-
quisition of such systems in children. Research on the origins of noun classifi-
cation systems has mainly been carried out on those languages with a gender
system, and particularly in Indo-European languages. The discussion there-
fore necessarily takes this perspective.
Not all languages have a noun classification system; Finnish and Chinese
are examples of languages that do not. Such a system would seem to be an un-
likely candidate for a language universal. If it is assumed that properties of the
innate language capacity within Chomsky's (1965) model of language acquisi-
tion can be deduced from language universals (see Comrie, 1981, for an alter-
native view), the learning of a noun classification system would not be based
directly on an innate capacity.
Some attempts have been made to offer a functional explanation for noun
classification systems. Jakobson (1932) argues with respect to Russian that the
gender system makes possible reference to an entity which is not marked for
sex, but, as Wienold (1967, p. 120) points out, this function is limited to a
relatively small number of cases. Martinet (1956), similarly to Meille! (1965),
2 Kaa (1976) argues against Bloomfield's interpretation of categories in Algonkian.
3 Although the term gender is derived from genus, which originally meant category in
general, the term now refers to sexual categories and will be used in this sense.
Ontology and Development of Gender 7
has argued in functional terms for the development of feminine gender in
Indo-European, that is, the feminine gender developed from the necessity of
congruence between the demonstrative pronoun and the noun. It is not clear,
however, for what reasons such congruence is necessary and for what reasons
this is necessary with nouns denoting female beings as opposed to other cate-
gories. If a noun classification system could be said to arise from functional
necessity, then within the explanatory framework of Bates (1976) and others,
who place great emphasis on the functional principles in language acquisition,
the child should learn the system quickly once the function has been estab-
lished. The arguments for the functional necessity of noun classification
systems in order to explain their origin are weak, but the connection between
function and acquisition may be relevant when considering the functions the
system fulfils once established.
A traditional view of the origin of gender and the view which lies behind
all descriptions of noun classification systems in terms of perceptual proper-
ties of the referents is that every noun, not just a core, is ordered to one cate-
gory or another on the basis of the perceptual properties. Following Herder
(1744-1803) and Adelung (1732-1806), Jakob Grimm (1831) also saw the
origin of the gender systems in Indo-European languages as being in the per-
ception of all entities as members of one sex or the other. If a noun classifica-
tion system is based on such perceptual distinctions, then such a system should
be reconstructible for the child once the underlying concepts have been
established from experience. For a gender system, for example, the concepts
of animacy and sex must be learned as a prerequisite for acquisition. In a
gender system such as German, which has entities with no natural sex included
within sex-related categories, the classification of each noun is described,
within this view, as being based on sex-related attributes of the referent. In
acquisition, therefore, assuming the features for classification have not
changed over time, it should still be possible to learn these attributes and
hence the gender system.
During the last century, research into the structural properties of early
Indo-European led to the view that language-internal changes had produced
the development of noun categories (Bindseil, 1836; Brugmann, 1897), al-
though the natural sex view still persisted as an explanation of the separation
of masculine and feminine (e.g. Wheeler, 1898; Meillet, 1965). Modern
studies on the origin of gender (Fodor, 1959; Ibrahim, 1973; loffe, 1973) con-
clude that the classification systems have emerged from the interplay of noun-
adjective agreement systems and changes in morphology and phonology;
Ibrahim (1973, p. 92) refers to "an accident of linguistic history". This view
implies that the child will learn gender as part of the linguistic structure of his
language using whatever language-internal rules are available. According to
the theory of acquisition upheld, different predictions can be made as to the
learning of these language-internal rules.
The three explanations for the development of noun classification systems
in particular with respect to gender can be linked to predictions about be-
8
haviour iu acquisition. Predictions can also be based on other aspects of the
system: the status accorded to the noun classification system and the extent to
which the system affects the linguistic structure of the language in question.
These aspects, including the status of noun classification systems in grammar
and the theory of markedness, which are related for the most part to the struc-
ture of individual languages, will be discussed in sections to follow (see pp.
8-11).
The Grammatical Status of Nouu Classification Systems
When considering acquisition, the grammatical status of a structure is only in-
teresting if it is assumed that there is a close relationship between linguistic de-
scription and the acquisition process. Within different theories, it is seen as a
target of description to reflect closely principles of acquisition in the formula-
tion of grammar (Chomsky, 1965; Pinker, 1982; Givan, 1986). In the present
discussion, it will be assumed that such a close relationship exists in order to
examine the consequences for the description of acquisition.
Martinet argues in his functionalist approach that gender in French car-
ries no meaning and thus should not be considered a morpheme. He writes:
If, as I believe we should, we refuse to identify as a linguistic unit a segment
that does not correspond to a new choice of the speaker, we must declare that
gender in French is no morpheme (1962, p. 16).
He sees gender as different from number, for example, where the speaker
chooses to communicate plurality. This analysis applies to French and by
definition to a noun classification system in general, since once the noun has
been selected, the marking will ensue. The consequence must be that gender
has no meaning base and must therefore be learned by such formal principles
as can apply in acquisition.
The status of classification units in linguistic description is pertinent to ac-
quisition. In gender systems, the semantic features [ + male) or [ + female) at-
tached to the noun are generally related to a gender category. Such compo-
nents or features are based on componential analysis in semantic theory (e.g.
Katz & Fodor, 1963). Coseriu and Geckeler (1974) call such general features
which occur in different lexical fields 'c!assemes'. Classemes are usually both
lexicalized and grammaticalized. Such units, as set up in linguistic description,
presumably correspond to units which are used by the speaker in language
behaviour and learned by the child in acquisition. The theories do not usually
specify how units may be acquired and whether certain units are easier to learn
than others. In Chomskyan theory, such types of components are seen as
universal and therefore innate. This implies that such components will be
accessible to the same degree for learners of all languages.
Theories of Opposition and Markedness 9
The different theories of grammar do not show such great variation in
their treatment of a feature such as agreement in relation to a noun classifica-
tion system. For example, in Chomsky's (1965, pp. 174 -175) treatment of
gender, which in his discussion he relates to German, gender is specified on
the noun as an entry in the lexicon and copied by means of an alpha-rule onto
those structures which are in agreement with the noun. This description,
which places the emphasis on the lexical entry for each individual noun, im-
plies that the child in acquisition will first learn the gender of the noun and
then the agreement rules for the affected parts of speech. Information about
the existence of a noun classification system and the classification of the indi-
vidual nouns comes at least in part from those parts of speech affected by the
agreement rules, so that it can be argued that acquisition could proceed in the
reverse direction from that predicted by the linguistic description (see
Maratsos & Chalkley, 1980; Maratsos, 1983). This question will be explored
further in the light of the acquisition data.
The next question to be raised is the basis for the lexical entry: Whether
an arbitrary entry exists for each noun or whether for those cases in which the
classification can be made by rule, such rules determine the classification on
the principle of economy in linguistic description. Semantic, morphological or
phonetic rules can specify the classification of the noun. A problem for the
latter solution in linguistic description is the exception to the rule and those
cases where more than one rule can apply. For the exception, the lexical entry
must be specified. For those cases where more than one rule can apply, it may
be possible to stipulate a hierarchy of rules.
The solution of arbitrary entries in the lexicon implies for acquisition that
the child must learn the classification by rote.' The integration of rules into the
system, which may cover the whole or only parts of the lexicon, implies that
the child will learn these rules in the acquisition process. The question then
arises which rules will be acquired first. A hierarchy of rules in the linguistic
description would make predictions about the order of acquisition.
Theories of Opposition and Markedness
Opposition is the semantic r,elation between a pair of elements in which the
one element is 'opposed to' the other, for example, in English the adjectives
big and small. There are problems in defining the notion of opposition exact-
ly, especially, as in the above example, where gradable properties are involved
(see Lyons, 1977, pp. 270 - 290), but the question of interest here is the rela-
tion of this opposition property to gender systems. Several linguists see gender
categories as establishing oppositions within the language (e.g. Hjelmslev,
1956), as for example between animate and inanimate or between male and
female. Hjelmslev (1959) argues from his considerations of the development
of gender categories in Indo-Germanic that the oppositions can become
10
weaker over time, but the possibility of making an opposition will be re-
exploited and possibly resemanticized. He suggests that the opposition in
Modern German between masculine and feminine genders is based on the ap-
positive properties 'expansive' (fem.) and 'concentrated' (masc.). If such a
system of oppositions is seen as the basis of a gender classification at anyone
point in time, these can be expressed as a set of semantic rules determining the
classification. The child's task would then be to learn these rules in his acquisi-
tion of the gender system.
Of a pair of items which are in opposition to one another, one is frequent-
ly described as being 'unmarked', while the other is 'marked'. This notion of
marking or markedness originates in the Prague School (See Vachek, 1966)
and was flfSt applied in the field of phonology; it has been extended to other
areas, in particular to semantics. Two aspects of marking are relevant to the
discussion of gender: distributional marking and semantic marking. For
distributional marking to apply, one member of an opposition pair must be
restricted in its distribution compared with the other. The restricted member is
the 'marked' item and the less restricted item the 'unmarked' one. For ex-
ample, in English the question How - is the X? can usually contain only one
of the two adjectives in pairs such as long/short, high/low, old/young; this is
the first member in each case. In gender systems, one gender may be more re-
stricted than another and so be described as marked. In French, for example,
feminine gender is distributionally marked compared with the masculine,
since in the case of a noun phrase containing two conjoined nouns of different
genders and an agreeing adjective, the adjective will take masculine agree-
ment, e.g. des boutiques (fern.) et magasins (masc.) fermes (masc.).4 In
German and English, the masculine pronoun form is distributionally un-
marked compared with the feminine marked form, since, amongst other
evidence, indefinite personal pronouns such as someone, jemand, whoever or
wer are referred to with the masculine form only. This rule that the unmarked
gender forms have masculine gender has also been formalized within a trans-
formational framework (Jacobsen, 1977, p. 1981).
Semantic marking means that one of a pair of terms in opposition has a
more restricted sense than the other 'unmarked' term. This is frequently
related to the property that the distinction which forms the basis of the oppo-
sition can be neutralized in one term of the pair. For example, the English
word author can be used to refer to a male or a female writer, whereas the
word authoress can only be used to refer to a female writer. The semantic
marking is in this case also formally marked by the suffix -ess, but this is not
always so, as in the pair dog and bitch. For such pairs, the unmarked term
functions as its own hypernym. There appears to be a gradation in the extent
to which this is possible: Some terms can function with the neutralized opposi-
4 This rule applies in standard French. However, it m ~ s t be noted that agreement is
also frequently made, in spoken French, with the final element of a conjoined set,
whatever gender that element may have.
Theories of Opposition and Markedness 11
tion in all contexts, others in only restricted contexts (see Lyons, 1977, pp.
308-311; Lehrer, 1985). Although dog and man are the unmarked terms in
the pairs dog/bitch and man/woman, dog can be used in all contexts as the
hypernym, but man cannot, as in that dog is a bitch, but not that man is a
woman.
There is a considerable amount of research on psycholinguistic aspects of
marked and unmarked categories. Greenberg (1966a; 1966b) has discussed
markednes in great detail and with respect to a large number of structures. He
sets out seven criteria for establishing the markedness of a form, covering the
points set out above. By his definition, markedness is to be equated with com-
plexity. In terms of semantic markednes, it can be seen that the unmarked
term, for which the opposition can be neutralized, is less complex in its de-
scription since the distinctive semantic feature is not specified; this neutralized
term is less complex than the marked term for which the feature is specified.
For children in the process of acquisition, the less complex term or unmarked
form should therefore be the easier to acquire. Lyons' notion of a degree of
markedness implies a range in complexity, which again has implications for
acquisition.
Since semantic markedness frequently goes together with distributional
markedness, the latter being the result of the former, the frequency with
which one of a pair of items appears in the input to the child could also in-
fluence acquisition. The two factors of complexity and frequency cannot be
kept apart in this instance.
Some research in child language has already suggested that unmarked
terms are learned before marked terms, including Donaldson and Wales
(1970) on adjective pairs such as high/low and Clark (1971) on the time pre-
positions before and after. Greenberg (1966a, pp. 36 - 39) has discussed
markedness in relationship to gender: He claims that the feature male is un-
marked as compared with the feature female. While this appears to be com-
mon in languages, it is not a language universal. Items with the feature
[ + male] should then be acquired earlier by children than items with the
feature [ + female]. This prediction will be examined closely in the acquisition
data.
This chapter has examined general aspects of the notion of gender in rela-
tion to acquisition. The following chapter takes a detailed look at the features
of the gender systems in English and German, also from the perspective of
relating the description to acquisition and particularly in terms of predicting
similarities and differences in the acquisition process.
CHAPTER 2
A Comparison of the Gender Systems in English
and German
A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing
language it is .... Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in
the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by
heart. There is no other way. To do this, one has to have a memory like a
memorandum book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.
Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what cal-
lous disrespect for the girl.
Mark Twain, The Awful German Language (1879)
Despite Mark Twain's impression of the German gender system, there are
far more regularities than he was aware of. In this chapter, the main features
of the gender systems of German and English will be presented under different
aspects; a comparison of the two systems will be made in order to underline
clearly the areas of similarity and difference. 5 This chapter thus serves as part
of the background to the work on acquisition of gender.
Although different theories of language acquisition will give the formal
properties of a linguistic system different weight in predicting behaviour in ac-
quisition (see Introduction), it is evident that they are important in every
theory. An area which can be described as having the same conceptual base in
two languages, such as reference to past time or reference to plural objects,
will not necessarily be learned in the same way or at the same rate in the two
languages depending on the linguistic structures involved. Even the theories
which root language acquisition in the development of cognition cannot deny
the influence of linguistic structure (Cromer, 1974). The formal properties of
the gender systems of English and German will now be discussed by trying to
evaluate the possible influence of these properties on the acquisition process in
both languages.
In the course of the presentation, frequent reference will be made to
various types of gender assignment rules with varying degrees of absoluteness.
Some of these rules could form part of the structure of the lexicon, some
could belong to the morphological component of the grammar. The location
5 Hawkins (1985) does not consider gender one of the essential contrasts between the
languages, although there are some major differences affecting syntax (see pp. 36 - 41).
Parts of Speech Affected by Gender 13
of the individual rules would vary according to the theoretical framework
adopted. The location of a particular rule does not, however, have clear
implications for acquisition since no one has claimed that, for example, rules
in the lexicon are more difficult to acquire than others. Such questions are
therefore not pursued in the following discussion.
Parts of Speech Affected by Gender
In English, the gender assigned to the noun influences only the selection of the
form of pronouns and then only in the third person singular. There are three
gender paradigms which have related case forms (see Table 2.1). In brief sum-
mary, he, (his, him) refers to masculine nouns, she, (her) to feminine nouns
and it (its) to impersonal nouns. In Old English, the gender system was more
extensive in that it affected not only the pronoun but also the article and
adjective (see Brunner, 1961). Owing to phonological and morphologi-
cal changes, the agreement system was reduced to the pronoun only in Mid-
dle English (Baron, 1971; van Glahn, 1918; see also Jesperson, 1914, pp.
174 - 219, for a general discussion of the system).
The German system ressembles that of Old English. The gender of the
noun influences the selection of the form of the articles, the attributive adjec-
tive, ordinal numbers, adjectival pronouns, relative and question pronouns,
participles, and the personal pronouns in the third person singular (see
Jarnatowskaja, 1968). There are three gender paradigms called masculine,
feminine and neuter. The adjective ending varies according to the presence of
a definite or indefinite article in the noun phrase. With a definite article, the
declension is referred to as 'weak', with the indefinite article as 'mixed' and
with no article as 'strong'.
Case and gender marking are confounded in that they cannot be related to
distinct segments. One form can also have several functions, so that knowl-
edge of case is necessary to place a form in its gender paradigm (see Werner,
1975, for a discussion of the interrelations). The article forms, pronouns, and
adjective declensions are set out in Tables 2.2 - 2.4 together with the plural,
Table 2.1. The Gender-Marked Pronoun System in EngliSh
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Subject he she it
Object him her it
Possessive pronoun his hers its a
Possessive adjective his her its
a There is no evidence of the use of this form.
14
A Comparison of the Gender Systems in English and German
Table 2.2. Declension of the Definite and Indefinite Articles in German
Case Masculine singular Neuter singular
Feminine singular Plural
Definite Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative der
Accusative den
Genitive des
Dative dem
ein
eineo
eines
eioem
das
das
des
dem
ein
ein
eines
einem
die
die
der
der
eine
eine
einer
einer
die
die
der
den
Table 2.3. Declension of the Gender-Marked Pronouns (Third Person) in German 6
Case
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Possessive adjective
Masculine
er
ihn
ihm
sein
Feminine
sie
sie
ihr
ihr
Neuter
es
es
ihm
sein
Plural
sie
sie
ihnen
ihr
from which this plurifunction can be easily seen. For example, the form der
(see Table 2.2), once it has been established that it is an article, could be
masculine nominative, feminine genitive or dative, or plural genitive. In-
formation must be gained from the number marking on the noun from the
syntactic function of the noun before gender can be identified. If the child
uses the marking of these forms of establish gender on the noun rather than
rules associated with the noun itself in terms of phonetic, morphological or
semantic rules, then this plurifunction must present problems. The child must
have knowledge of cases and plural in order to be able to establish the gender
paradigms. This plurifunction is not present in English, although case mark-
ing is combined with gender marking on the pronouns.
Plurifunction should make acquisition harder for the German children;
on the other hand, gender is marked in German on adjectives and articles,
which are acquired before pronouns, pronouns being attenuated in their
referential function. German children could therefore learn the gender system
in association with articles and adjectives before English children learn gender
in association with pronouns.
6 The genitive forms should possibly be included here, although they only Occur with a
small number of verbs which have their object in genitive case, for example,
gedenken 'to honour'. The genitive forms are seiner (masc.), ihrer (fern.) and seiner
or es (old form) (neu!.).
Parts of Speech Affected by Gender
15
16 A Comparison of the Gender Systems in English and German
Semantic Rules
Natural Gender Rule
Both English and German have a natural gender rule, that is, when a noun has
the feature [ + male] or [ + female] because its referent possesses natural sex, in
the majority of cases, the noun is given masculine or feminine gender respec-
tively. This rule is perceived as central to the German and English noun classi-
fication system, hence the use of the term 'gender'. 3 Together with the ani-
macy/inanimacy distinction the masculine/feminine distinction is seen as
characteristic of Indo-European languages in general (Lohmann, 1932) For
example sister and Schwester have the semantic feature [ + female], brother
and Bruder have the feature [+ male], the first pair have then feminine
gender, the second pair, masculine. This distinction is not made in the plural
in either language, unlike languages such as Spanish. In German, proper
names can be used with a preceding article indicating natural gender, e.g. der
Peter, die Maria.
In English, there are only a few instances in which there is a mismatch be-
tween the biological fact and language use: A male can be referred to as she if
an emphasis is placed on his effemininacy, such as in the case of homosexuals.
A female can almost never be referred to as he. Hall (1951) argues on this
basis that English has no grammatical gender. In German, there are only two
terms for male humans which have feminine gender, both of which emphasize
the lack of masculinity of the referent: die Mumme 'coward' and die Tunte
'effeminate homosexual'. For females, however, Zubin and Kopcke (1981) see
the relationship between sex and gender as weaker. They formulate a rule:
"Nouns canonically referring to women are feminine or neuter, depending on
lexical content for sexual status, kinship status, and derogation" (p. 445).
Those nouns which refer to females before the age of recognized sexual status,
e.g. das Gar 'girl', or which, in Zubin and K6pcke's formulation, "suggest
lack of sexual desirability" e.g. das Weib 'woman', or which have clear
derogatory content, e.g. das Mensch 'hussy' have neuter gender. Although the
relationship between sex and gender may be described as weaker for females,
this must be seen as relative to males. The relationship is still strong; the
incidence of neuter gender according to the above rule is comparatively small.
In English, the natural gender rule accouuts for a high proportion of the
uses of he and she; in other words, masculine and feminine gender are to be
attributed to a large proportion of the nouns which are related to a gender-
marked form on the basis of the natural gender rule. In German, the natural
gender rule accounts for only a relatively small number of nouns to which
masculine or feminine gender is assigned. Tisch 'table', for example, is not
masculine gender on the basis of the natural gender rule. It is a question of
debate, as discussed earlier (pp. 6 - 8), whether gender assignment in such
cases is to be attributed to properties of the referent associated with masculini-
ty or femininity, but it clearly cannot be accounted for by the natural gender
Semantic Rules 17
rule. The rule has quite a different status in the two languages, which implies a
different degree of difficulty for the language learner. Since in English the
natural gender rule is important compared with other rules, the acquisition of
this rule should be easier than in German, where it takes its place among other
rules affecting the rest of the lexicon (see pp. 26-30).
The Animacy and Personal Rule
In English, the animacy and personal rules account to a large extent for the
use of the pronoun it as opposed to he and she. Under normal stylistic condi-
tions, inanimate referents are referred to with it, contrasting with he and she
for human or personal animates. The distinction is not upheld in the plural;
the pronoun they covers both animates and inanimates. Impersonal animates
(plants, insects, animals, etc.) are also pronominalized with it, unless the
animate being has been specified for sex, then the natural gender rule applies.
Thus, in sentence 1, the dog being unspecified for sex is pronominalized with
it (or possibly he, see common gender rule); bitch in sentence 2 must be
pronominalized with she.
(1) That dog is educated. It barks at politicians.
(2) The bitch is on heat. She is desperate to be let out.
The animacy and personal rules also apply to relative, interrogative, de-
monstrative and indefinite pronouns in English, although these do not reflect
the natural gender rule (see Table 2.5). Hjelmslev (1959, p. 232) records that
languages which have no masculine or feminine distinction often have such a
rule in this area, so that it appears to reflect a basic notion. The interrogative
pronoun what and the relative pronoun which refer to inanimates and im-
personal animates, contrasting with who for personal animates.
Table 2.5. The Marking of Animacy in Relative, Interrogative, Demonstrative and
Indefinite Pronouns in English and German
Part of speech Inanimate/impersonal Personal
Relative pronoun English which who
German
Interrogative pronoun English what who
German was wer
Demonstrative pronoun English that
German das
Indefinite pronoun English something, anything someone, anyone
everything everyone
German etwas jemand
The demonstrative pronoun that can only be used for inanimates and im-
personal animates; there is no corresponding animate form of this pronoun.
To refer to a person the adjective that must be used with the indefinite noun
person. So, while sentence 3 is possible, sentence 4 not.
(3) 1 want to buy that. (pointing to a carpet)
(4) 1 want to see that. (pointing to a man)
In English, the inanimate and impersonal category would seem to be un-
marked according to the criteria discussed above (pp. 9-11), since under
some circumstances (not all) the terms from this category can act as the terms
with the neutralized opposition, as for example in sentences Sa or 5b.
(5a) What is standing in the corner?
Is it Daniel or the bottle?
(Sb) The bike and its rider, which were both squashed flat by the lorry, ...
It does not seem possible to use it as a hypernym, however. Assuming the in-
animate and impersonal terms are unmarked, they should, according to the
arguments presented earlier, be acquired first.
In German, the neuter gender does not include all inanimate referents, al-
though the class derives its name in the language from the word for 'thing':
sachlich 'neuter' from Sache 'thing'. Inanimate referents are distributed
across all three genders, although animate referents are concentrated in
masculine and feminine genders. By contrast, then, neuter gender may be
perceived as being more closely related to the feature 'inanimate'.
Once reference has been made to a noun in German, it can be omitted in a
following phrase which includes an article and adjective, as the following
sentence illustrates:
Ich habe zwei Schreibmaschinen. Die alte ist kaputt.
'I have two typewriters. The old (one) is broken'.
It is also possible to use the article followed by an adjective, when no linguistic
reference to a noun has preceded, to make general reference to a category.
When the masculine article or feminine article is used in such a construction,
reference is made to a man or woman respectively, thus der Kranke 'the sick
(man)" eine Dicke 'a fat (woman)' (Brinkmann, 1954). When the neuter
article is used in this way, the noun phrase refers to the abstract property, for
example das Schone 'the beautiful (thing) = the beauty'. Here, the neuter
gender contrasts with masculine and feminine in that it refers only to the in-
animate.
7
7 The exception is the use of das Kleine 'the little (one)' to refer to a child.
Semantic Rules 19
In some areas of German, the link between neuter gender and inanimacy
is clear. As in English, interrogative, demonstrative and indefinite pronouns
(not relative pronouns) distinguish the forms referring to inanimates and im-
personal animates from those referring to personal animates (see Table 2.5).
So, for example, was 'what' and das 'that' cannot be used to refer to humans.
Wer is the interrogative pronoun used to refer to animate personal referents.
A differentiation is also made in German in the possible forms of
pronoun in combination with a preposition. When the pronoun refers to a
personal referent, the pronoun forms ihn, ihm, etc. (see Table 2.3) are used
(sentence 6a); whereas with an impersonal referent a general prefixed form is
used da- (sentence 6b).
(6a) Ich mag den Jungen; ich gehe mit ihm ins Kino.
'I like the boy; I'm going with him to the cinema'.
(6b) Ich mag den Hut; ich gehe damit ins Kino.
'I like the hat; I'm going with it to the cinema',
(= I'm going to wear it to the cinema'.)
(6c) Die Frau, fUr die ich den Aufsatz schrieb, ist pleite.
'The woman for whom I wrote the essay is broke' .
(
6d) D' Z't [wofOr ich den Aufsatz schrieb, ist pleite.
Ie el ung, fUr die
'The newspaper for which I wrote the essay is broke' .
In relative clauses, the form wo + preposition can be used with impersonal
nouns; with personal nouns, this form is impossible. The alternative of
preposition + relative pronoun (in most cases, identical to the definite article,
see Table 2.2) can be used with both personal and impersonal nouns (see
sentences 6c, 6d). The choice is often made on pragmatic grounds, since the
form wo gives no information as to gender (see Curme, 1960, p. 201) or case.
In questions, the wo + preposition form is essential with impersonal nouns;
with personal nouns, the appropriate form of wer is used.
In German, the inanimate and impersonal category would seem to be un-
marked in the same way as in English; these terms can be used with the neu-
tralized opposition, as sentence 7 illustrates (compare with sentence Sa).
(7) Was stehl in der Ecke? Daniel oder die Flasche?
In both English and German, there is a tendency to avoid using the imper-
sonal interrogative and demonstrative pronouns when referring to higher
animals. This applies particularly to the demonstrative pronoun, since the
reference is clear in that case. So, in the context of a zoo visit, it is possible to
say Was gibt es im nachsten Kafig? or What is in the next cage? when an
animal is clearly being referred to, but it is not clear of what type. However, it
is not so acceptable to say with clear reference to a particular, especially
higher, animal Dos sieht aber gefahrlich aus or That looks dangerous. The
implications of inanimacy appear to be too strong in that context.
In both languages, it is possible to break the rule deliberately to produce
an effect of disparagement through inanimacy (non-humanness) where a per-
sonal pronoun would be normally expected. Curme quotes (1935, p. 149) a
popular novel:
Would you like to marry Malcolm? Fancy being owned by that! Fancy seeing
it every day.
In German, a similar effect is possible:
Sowas wurde ich nie heiraten.
This use is a deliberate violation of the rule, exploiting the usual associations
for unusual effect.
English and German would then appear to have many similarities in the
application of this animacy and personal rule, but English has a far more
extensive association of inanimate and impersonal with it and related forms
than German has with neuter gender. It could be the case that German chil-
dren make use of the distinction in the area of demonstrative pronouns etc. in
the learuing of the gender system in nouns and classify all inanimates as neuter
gender. In terms of the markedness theory, the forms marking inanimate and
impersonal in both languages should be learned before those marking
personal.
Common Gender Rule
He you know was Jacky
She you know was Kit
And then there came that baby boy
Whom everyone called it.
Beny, rneeny, miney, mo,
Put the baby on the po,
When he's done
Wipe his bum
Shove the paper up the lum.
Opie and Opie (1959)
In German, there exists a certain association between common gender
terms, that is, terms referring to entities which can have sex but where the sex
is unspecified, and neuter gender. Zubin and Kopcke (1981) formulate the rule
thus: "Nouns denoting domesticated animals without reference to sex are
neuter" (p. 444). Terms which do not determine sex are superordinate terms
or those referring to the young. An example of this association is taken (1981,
p. 444) from the lexical field of chickens illustrated in Figure 2.1.
An alternative term for chicken is Hiihnchen (neuter). Although the
diminutive suffix -chen assigns neuter gender to the noun by morphological
rule (see pp. 30 - 31) the fact that the term is superordinate in the lexical struc-
ture fits in with the semantic rule.
Semantic Rules
dos Geflugel
poultry'
I
das Huhn
~ c h i c k e n ~
der Hahn
'rooster'
das Kuken
'chick'
die Henne
'hen'
Fig. 2.1. Lexical field of chickens. (Adapted from Zubin & Kopcke, 1981)
21
Clearly, the area of application of this rule is limited in scope, but the
general feature of sexlessness, as formulated in the natural gender rule for fe-
male humans in German, is also associated with neuter gender (see pp.
16-17). Other related items which are also neuter gender are das Kind 'child'
and das Baby 'baby' (exception: der Siiugling 'infant'). It is also possible to
refer to a baby or small animal, without a previous linguistic reference, using
the headless noun-phrase construction discussed in the previous ,ection. For
example: Guck mal, so ein Kleines. 'Look, such a little (one, baby)'.
In English, the common gender rule and impersonal rule are interrelated
since, as was set out above, those impersonal animates which can have sex are
usually pronominalized with the pronoun it etc., unless sex has been specified
by some aspect of the linguistic or non-linguistic context. It would be possible
to separate the two rules by formulating them so that the impersonal rule
would apply to those referents which have no sex specification and the
common gender rule to those referents which can be specified for sex but
where the sex is unknown or irrelevant. In many instances, it would be
impossible to know which rule had applied, since this depends on the
knowledge of the speaker. For the speaker who does not know that an amoeba
can be male or female, for example, and for the speaker who chooses to
ignore that fact, the result is the same, i.e. the use of the pronoun it.
For human referents, both English and German select the masculine
forms to indicate common gender. That is, where the sex of the person is un-
known or irrelevant, the gender of the noun, pronouns and related forms are
taken from the masculine paradigm. Sentences 8a and 8b illustrate this use
with nouns. The speaker is not specifying a male doctor but a person of either
sex within that profession.
(Sa) I am looking for a doctor. He must come straight away.
(8b) Ich suche einen Arzt. Er mu13 sofort kommen.
Indefinite personal pronouns are also masculine (sentences 9a and 9b), but
some linguistic contexts make it more difficult to get the common gender
reading, as is the case in 9c and 9d compared with 9a and 9b (see Lehrer, 1985,
for a discussion of this variation in relation to markedness).
(9a) Someone has left his coat.
(9b) Jemand hat seinen Mantel dagelassen.
(9c) Who is leaving tomorrow and what train will he be catching?
(9d) Wer reist morgen ab und mit welchem Zug fahrt er?
The generic terms for human in both languages are masculine: man and der
Mensch.
In German, there has not yet emerged an alternative to the masculine as
common gender; the indefinite pronouns are assigned masculine grammatical
gender. So, even when it is known that the reference group can only consist of
females, for example in an antenatal gymnastics class, the indefinite pronoun
remains masculine (see Chapter 3). Thus, the following utterance from the
physiotherapist to the group:
Jemand, def Wehen hat, soli sofort in def Klinik anrufen.
'Anyone who (mase.) has contractions should immediately ring the hospital'.
Some nouns in English appear to be an exception to this rule, in that she is
used when indefinite reference is made, for example in sentence 10.
(10) When a nurse is on duty, she must wear her cap.
On closer inspection, however, such terms often cannot function as hyper-
nyms and are restricted to the group of females only, so nurse does not include
female and male nurses. With a noun such as primary school teacher, which is
frequently, but not always, pronominalized with she, the decision appears to
be pragmatic, since most primary school teachers are female. The use of the
pronoun she in such contexts is not perceived as including males; it refers to a
stereotype. Where an explicit linguistic reference, for example to male and
female teachers, had been made beforehand, it would not be possible to
continue with the use of the feminine pronoun. Such uses are not to be seen as
common gender forms, since the formal criterion of hypernymity is not
fulfilled.
For small children and babies, it is also used as the common gender form,
as well as he (see sentence 11 and the two children's rhymes at the beginning of
this section).
(11) The baby yelled at the top of its voice.
Semantic Rules 23
The use of it here does not carry the overlay of disparagement as it does in
connection with adults but does emphasize the lack of sex specification. 8
In Modern English, the plural third person pronoun is also used to in-
dicate common gender, even when the referent is clearly singular (Mackay,
1980). So, for example, an alternative version of sentence 9a is sentence 12, al-
though only one coat is mentioned.
(12) Someone has left their coat.
Despite some variations, in both English and German there is an associa-
tion of neuter gender with common gender for animate impersonal referents
and an association of masculine gender with common gender for personal
referents. The association in the first instance is stronger in English than in
German, since it affects a greater part of the lexicon. In terms of a prediction
according to markedness, these semantically unmarked common gender
forms should be learned before the corresponding marked forms. In English,
the rule for animate impersonal referents is affected by what has been in the
grammars frequently called personification. This will be discussed in the next
section.
Personification Rule
In English, it is possible to use the personal pronoun forms for referents which
are inanimate or animate impersonal and which would according to the
previous rules be pronominalized by the it form. This use is called personifica-
tion. since the personal pronouns are used. In German, this is not possible.
since the masculine and feminine genders are not reserved exclusively for male
and female referents. Personification enables the English speaker to avoid the
connotations of inanimacy which follow when it is used as the common
gender pronoun in reference to an animate being (sentences 13a and 13b) and
actually to suspend the feature of inanimacy in reference to an inanimate
object (sentence 14).
(13a) The bear looks ferocious, but he does not eat meat.
(13b) How winsome is the swallow. How tender and pleasing all her notes.
(14) Look at that car; he's waiting for the driver. (mother to child)
Several explanations have been offered for the choice of personal
pronoun, that is, he or she, once the speaker has decided not to use the
pronoun it. From a historical perspective, the rules determining the choice of
8 At the turn of the century, it could also be used as the pronoun in reference to a col-
lective everyone or each one, where the group referred to consisted of both sexes, e.g.
"Everyone fell on its knees" (Nesbit, 1904). This is no longer common.
I
I:
he or she can be linked to the change in the status of gender from Old to Mid-
dle English. In Old English, each noun had a grammatical gender as in Ger-
man. Through phonological and morphological changes, this system decayed
and was gradually replaced by a system close to Modern English (Baron,
1971). Personification was common in Middle English texts; for example, in
The Owl and the Nightingale (ca. 1195 -1216), both the birds are referred to
with feminine pronoun forms. The choice of pronoun was affected by a
considerable number of factors discussed at length in the corresponding litera-
ture (see for example Ausbiittel, 1904; Morsbach, 1913; Karpf 1930, pp.
4 - 28). Amongst the factors mentioned are the influence of the language of
the original text, rhyme associations, gender of words in the same semantic
field and what is called a general tendency to 'masculinize'. Patterns of per-
sonification were established which continued through New Modern English
(see Abbott, 1966) and which are close to those found in Modern English (see
Langenfelt, 1951). The latter can therefore be explained on the basis of
traditional usage.
Other explanations exclude the idea of traditional usage and emphasize
the influence of psychological factors determining the choice of pronoun at
the moment of speaking. Joly (1975) wants to explain usage using the concept
of power. 'Major power' is associated with he and 'minor power' with she.
This is schematized in Figure 2.2. When an animal is referred to as it, this is
because it is considered as inanimate and without power; the speaker is indif-
ferent. Using he" the speaker is interested and considers the animal animate.
Using he2 or she, the speaker is strongly interested and assigns major or minor
power to the animal. J oly claims, without any justification from frequency of
usage, that "she will be said of any animal, big or small, that is in some way
subordinated to the speaker" (1975, p. 272). Pets, he argues, are the objects of
affection and are to be given minor power. Joly's analysis is descriptively and
explanatorily inadequate. Firstly, pets are not most commonly referred to as
she; usage appears to be animal specific, cats, for example, frequently being
HE,
major
power

animate inanimate
power no power
SHE
minor
power
Fig. 2.2. Use of he/she/it with non-human-animates and inanimates. (Adapted from
Joly, 1975, pp. 273, 276)
Semantic Rules 25
referred to as she, but dogs he. Secondly, since both are pets, power would not
seem to explain the difference between the animals.
J aly also claims that she is predominant with inanimates if it is not used
and attributes this to the fact that:
.. . she is in fact the first position to be found in the field of animation and, as
such, it has gradually become the usual referring pronoun for inanimates that
are momentarily (or permanently) endowed with power. (1975, p. 276)
The feminine pronoun is used to refer to countries and ships, as well as cars
and some machines, but it is to be disputed that this use is predominant
among all inanimates. In many examples', it is not clear that the concept of
minor power is appropriate, such as with a ship or a country. The concept of
power does not seem to be adequate to explain the facts.
Vachek (1964) refers to the use of he and she in this context as 'emo-
tionally marked' compared with the use of it. If this can be interpreted in the
general framework of marking, it would imply that these marked uses
would be learned later than the unmarked use of 'it'. Vachek explains the
choice of masculine or feminine according to the properties of the referent.
He writes:
The reason why the feminine set was chosen to refer to the positive kind of
approach (signalling the thing referred to as amiable, intimately known,
delicate, etc.), while the masculine set serves to denote the opposite, negative
kind of approach (signalling, in its turn, the concerned thing as huge, strong,
unwiedly or generally unpleasant) is too obvious to need detailed specifica-
tion - it reflects the common conception of the feminine vs. masculine
features regarded as typical of each of the two sexes (1964, pp. 190-191).
These features are definitely not universally associated with maleness and
femaleness; some Australian languages, for example, make all nouns referring
to poisonous creatures feminine gender. Vachek's analysis must therefore be
restricted to English. For English speakers, Vachek assumes that males and fe-
males are associated with specific attributes and that the speakers agree on the
attributes, although individual differences can occur in the perception of a
particular referent. On the basis of these attributes, the sex-marked pronouns
are chosen.
Mathiot (1979) makes the same assumption that attributes of the referent
determine usage, but she has conducted a more detailed analysis of the attri-
butes involved as they relate to social and emotional factors. She makes a dis-
tinction in usage according to the sex of the speaker. So, for example, a
woman will use she to refer to an inanimate object which she perceives as
'mature', but he for an object perceived as 'infantile'; a male speaker on the
other hand will use she to refer to an object he perceives as 'incompetent' and
he for an object perceived as 'competent'. The positive and negative poles, as
assumed by Vachek, do not match the uses of masculine and feminine pro-
uouns in this analysis.
Both authors mention conventional uses, such as she for countries, ships
etc., but suggest that these uses can be explained in terms of their general anal-
ysis. This detracts from the description of usage as conventional, however,
since the convention will override and replace the sp,:0ntaneous choice. It is
difficult to determine where a convention exists, except in a few clear
instances such as she for countries, and how to distinguish between conven-
tional and spontaneous usage. This distinction is important in accounting for
acquisition since, according to the description given, the child would learn two
different systems - either the use of a pronoun with a particular noun or a
general rnle classifying referents on the basis of perceived attributes.
To summarize: Conventional and spontaneous usage determine the
choice of he and she in personification, that is, in animated contexts. Spon-
taneous usage is determined by varying factors which may be linked to the
perception of the referent in terms of male and female attributes. The
pronoun he can function as the animated common gender form of it.
Other Semantic Rules
The rules set out in the previous section account for the major uses of gender-
marked pronouns in English. In German, however, there are a considerable
number of other semantic rules, as well as morphological and phonetic rules.
The most recent work on semantic rules in German gender assignment has
been carried out by Zubin and Kopcke (1982; 1983). This will be briefly sum-
marized here to give an idea of the complexity of the semantic rule system.
Zubin and Kopcke have discovered a far greater number of rules than were
previously included in standard grammars (e.g. Schulz & Sundermeyer, 1974);
the latter will be presented in Zubin and Kopcke's framework along with the
other more recently discovered rules (see Table 2.6).
Zubin and Kopcke distinguish between basic level nouns and superordi-
nate terms. Superordinate terms are associated with neuter gender; some of
these terms have neuter gender through the morphological rule that the prefix
ge- (meaning 'collective') on an noun determines neuter gender (see pp.
30 - 31), for example, Geflugel 'all with wings = poultry'. However, the rule
covers a much broader section of the lexicon than is affected by this morpho-
logical rule, for example, das Amt 'office' compared with die Post 'post
office', die Polizei 'police station', or das Obst 'fruit' compared with der
Apfel 'apple' and die Birne 'pear'.
Zubin and Kopcke divide the basic level nouns into four group types ac-
cording to the type of gender assignment. Firstly, there are semantic fields
such as colour names which are directly associated with a particular gender, in
this case neuter (rules 2 -14, Table 2.6). Secondly, there are semantic fields
which have an 'inner structure' (rules 15 - 21, Table 2.6), that is, different
Semantic Rules
27
Table 2.6. Semantic Rules of Gender Assignment in German
Semantic category Associated gender Example
1. Superordinates Neuter das Obst 'fruit'
das Amt 'office'
2. Colours Neuter das Grlin 'green'
das Saffran 'saffron'
3. Power/strength Feminine die Gewalt 'force'
4. Speech acts Feminine, die Rede 'speech'
5. Waste Masculine def Dreck 'muck'
6. Cloth Masculine def Taft 'taffeta'
7. Hunting Feminine die Jagd 'hunt'
8. Heavenly bodies Masculine der Mond 'moon'
9. Stone/sand Masculine def Quarz 'quartz'
10. Musical instruments Feminine die Orgel 'organ'
11. Knowledge/skill Feminine die Kunst 'art'
12. Chemical elements Neuter das Silber 'silver'
13. Abstract units of measure Neuter das Watt 'watt'
14. Games Neuter das Poker 'poker'
<Inner structure groups'
15. Gestalt
a. Line Masculine der Stock 'stick'
b. Surface Feminine die Tafel 'board'
c. Sharp Feminine die Gabel 'fork'
d. Pincer Feminine die Zange 'pliers'
16. Man, woman and child
a. Unisex Masculine der Fahrer 'driver'
b. Natural gender
Female: Feminine die Witwe 'widow'
Male: Masculine der Herr 'gentleman'
c. Downgrading Neuter das Mensch 'hussy'
17. Domesticated animals
a. Natural gender
Female: Feminine die Stute 'mare'
Male: Masculine der Hengst 'stallion'
b. Common Neuter das Pferd 'horse'
18. Symbolic function Neuter das Zeichen 'sign'
a. Gesture Feminine die Gebarde 'gesture'
b. Seafaring signs Feminine die Boje 'buoy'
c. Numbers Feminine die Nummer 'number'
19. Weather
a. Precipitation Masculine der Reif 'frost'
b. Wind Masculine der Passat 'tradewind'
c. Temperature Feminine die Glut 'burning heat'
20. Time
a. Shortest Feminine die Sekunde 'second'
b. Shorter Masculine der Tag 'day'
28
Table 2.6 (continued)
Semantic category
c. Longer
d. Time spans
21. Beverages
a, Carbonated
b. Beer
Associated gender
Neuter
Feminine
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
Example
das lahrzehnt 'decade'
die Brut 'hatching time'
def Schnaps 'spirits'
die Brause 'lemonade'
das Pilsener 'pils beer'
'Complex groups' (rules only apply when morphological/phonetic marking missing)
22. Birds Masculine def Habicht 'hawk'
23. Plants Masculine def Pilz 'mushroom'
a. Trees Feminine die Birke 'birch'
b. Fruit Feminine die Bime 'pear'
c. Spices/herbs Masculine def KOmmel 'caraway'
d. Grass Neuter das Heu 'hay'
24. Ships and boats
a. Sailing craft
b. Hand or motor craft
'Continua'
25. Parts
a. Integrated --+
separable
26. Bodies of water
a. Enclosed --+
open
b. Tidewater
c. Wet areas
27. Animal kingdom
a. most man like --+
insects, lower
animals
28. Affect
a. Extroversion --+
introversion
Feminine
Masculine
Masculine --+
neuter
Masculine --+
feminine
Neuter
Feminine
Masculine --+
feminine
Masculine --+
feminine
die Jacht 'yacht'
der Kajak 'kayak'
der Bestandteil 'ingredient'
das Einzelteil 'spare parts'
der See 'lake'
die See 'sea'
das Fleet 'tidal canal'
die Pfiitze 'puddle'
der Affe 'ape'
die Fliege 'fly'
der A.rger 'annoyance'
die Angst 'anxiety'
Note. The semantic rules of gender assignment are summarized from the detailed
analysis of Zubin and K6pcke (1983). The ordering and subcategorization of the rules is
taken from their discussion.
sub-fields are associated with different genders, for example in the semantic
field of weather terms. precipitation and wind terms are generally masculine,
words for temperature are feminine. Thirdly, some semantic fields are viewed
as 'complex' in that an association with a gender applies, unless a phonetic or
morphological rule will determine gender (rules 22 - 24, Table 2.6); for
Semantic Rules 29
example, bird names are masculine, unless they have an -e ending which deter-
mines feminine gender (see pp. 32 - 34). Fourthly, a 'continuum' is formed in
some semantic fields from one pole to another; the poles are then associated
with different genders (rules 25 - 28, Table 2.6); for example, terms for open
stretches of water are at the one extreme feminine, moving to closed stretches
of water which are associated with masculine gender at the other. Particularly
in the second and last continua groups, a contrast is established between
groups of words through their association with different genders in the same
way that coherence is established between words having the same gender.
These rules (Table 2.6) vary according to the number of words they apply
to in proportion to the size of the lexicon and the number of exceptions to the
rule. In terms of a discovery procedure in acquisition, the rules must vary in
their transparency within the system and be learned with more or less diffi-
culty.
It is a truism that children must possess the cognitive prerequisites for the
learning of the common features which unite a semantic field; for example,
the concept of a temperature scale must be present before the child can group
the linguistic terms referring to temperature as members of the same set. The
group of terms is then perceived as being in association with a particular
gender. Such cognitive pace-setting implies that some of the semantic rules
will be learned very late. It is, however, equally possible that the common
feature of gender leads to a grouping of items in terms of their common
semantic property rather than vice versa. The rule can only be said to be
learned when the association is present, whichever way around it is acquired.
Zubin and Kopcke wish to make distinctions in the status of items in the
lexicon; they classify words as being in the core, system or periphery, which
they define according to the criteria of frequency of use and variety of con-"
texts in which the items can occur. Most of the exceptions to the rules, they
argue, are to be found in the core or periphery. This classification runs the
risk of becoming circular, and therefore meaningless, since an item can be
described as belonging to the core precisely because it constitutes an exception
to the rule. Criteria have to be found for determining the status of an item
independently of its behaviour with respect to the rules. This differentiation
is nevertheless pertinent when considering acquisition, since the items in the
core would appear to be closely related to those items which children first
learn. If this is correct, then the acquisition of a semantic rule may be delayed
until enough of the 'system' items are learned for the rule to become transpar-
ent.
Zubin and Kopcke's analysis would certainly appear to have some validity
from the evidence which comes from language change (1983, p. 62). They
show that gender has frequently changed in the direction of the rules which
they set forward, suggesting that the rules are productive. Assuming they are
correct, the natural gender, animacy and common gender rules discussed in
the previous sections must be seen in the context of the large number of other
semantic rules which exist in German. Contrary to popular belief, the ani-
30
macy, common gender and natural gender rules are then a few among many
and in terms of the number of items to which they apply would not seem to be
more frequent in application than some of the other semantic rules.
Morphological Rules
Derivational Suffixes
In English, the suffix -ess can be added to certain nouns denoting a male
referent, human or animal, to form a noun denoting the female. Author, for
example, becomes authoress 'female author' and lion becomes lioness 'female
lion'. These forms also have feminine gender through the semantic rule of
natural gender.
In German, the suffix -in has the same function as -ess in English, being
added to masculine nouns to denote the female referent, for example Freund
'male friend' and Freundin 'female friend'. 9 There are, however, a number of
other affixes not related to the natural gender rule which are nevertheless asso-
ciated with a particular gender. For example, the suffixes -ung, -heit, -erei,
-schajt, and -keit forming abstract nouns determine that the whole be
feminine gender. Such derivatives are extremely common. Diminutive suffixes
-lein and -chen take neuter gender. The prefix ge- added to another noun
meaning 'collective' determines neuter gender, for example das Gewasser
'collective water = body of water'. This last rule is related to the semantic rule
which associates all superordinate terms with neuter gender (see Table 2.6,
rule 1). Nouns derived from another part of speech with no affix are neuter
gender, for example das Schwimmen 'swimming' from the verb schwimmen
'to swim' or das Ich 'ego' from the personal pronoun ich 'I'. Nouns borrowed
from Latin which have suffixes associated with a particular gender usually
have the same gender in German: -ment, for example, is neuter, -ittit and -lion
are feminine.
Noun Compounds
In English, the natural gender of a human or animal can be specified by form-
ing a compound with the common gender terms as its head. For human
beings, the common gender term is combined with the words lady, girl or
woman for females or man or boy for males. These nouns are prefixed before
9 The suffixes -ess for English and -in for German, although they designate the female
counterpart of the male, sometimes produce a change in meaning. The term
priestess, for example, is a female priest, but one primarly associated with pagan
rites. Some terms for professions ending in -in in German are perceived by some
speakers as slightly derogatory, for example, Projessorin 'female professor'.
Morphological Rules 31
the common gender term, for example, lady doctor or manservant. 10 In the
animal kingdom, birds can be specified for natural gender with the words hen
or cock, some animals with cow or bull or in general he or she, for example,
he-bear, she-bear.
In German, there is no directly equivalent rule in compounds, deriva-
tional suffixes beiug most frequently used. With animals, however, it is com-
mon to form a compound with the diminutive terms -miinnchen 'male' and
-weibchen 'female', but, since these are diminutive, the gender is neuter.
In German, noun compounds, for which the language is renowned (see
Mark Twain), are frequently created by speakers. The gender of such com-
pounds is determined by the gender of the final compounding element. Zubin
and Kopcke refer to this as the Last-Member Principle: "A morphologically
complex noun is assigned the gender associated with the final segment" (1983,
p.9).
Since German has predominantly gender-determining suffixes, this rule
predicts gender correctly in the majority of cases. For example, das Maus-
miinnchen 'male mouse' consists of Maus(fem.) 'mouse' Mann (masc.) 'man'
and -chen (neut.) 'diminutive', and since -chen is the final element, the whole
compound has neuter gender. The term 'final segment' has to be defined more
precisely than in the rule formulated by Kopcke and Zubin, since it is not clear
what kind of morphological analysis is being referred to. In a word such as
das Muttergestein 'parent rock', for example, which consists of the noun Mut-
ter (fern.) 'mother', the prefix ge- (neut.) 'collective' and the noun Stein
(masc.), 'stone', the gender of the compound is determined by the gender of
the last complex noun, that is Gestein (neut.).
In English, the morphological rules are linked with the natural gender rule
and acquisition of the gender of these forms could occur through this rule
alone. In German, some rules are also linked to the natural gender rule, in
which case the same may apply. Other rules are not linked to a semantic rule
and must be learned independently. Since the nominalizing suffixes occurring
in abstract nouns are likely to appear late in the vocabulary of the child, this
gender rule is also likely to appear late. The most likely candidate for early ac-
quisition is the diminutive rule, since diminutives are common in speech to
children as well as in the speech of children themselves.
10 See Jespersen (1914, pp. 183 - 219) for a fuller discussion of human terms (pp.
183 -188) and animal terms (pp. 199 - 202). It should also be noted here that not all
compounds including lady or man as the first element are of this type, for example
lady killer refers a man who 'kills (with his seductive charm)' ladies, not to a lady
who kills. The structural opacity of noun compounds is a well-known characteristic
of English (see Lees, 1960).
Phonetic Rules
33
Phonetic Rules aJ
"
N 0-
00
_ 00

Phonetic rules exist for German. but not for English. Some such rules have
Z
N N
-
N
been recognized as existing for a considerable period of time (see, for exam-

pIe, Curme, 1960, pp. 123-124); other rules have been recently investigated in
:i a computer analysis of monosyllabic nouns by Kopcke (1982).

-
00 N N
There are in general more masculine gender nouns than the other two gen-

" "

- -
'"
'S 'S
-
ders; Bauch (1971) estimated 50"70 masculine as opposed to 30% feminine and
"
'S'S
20% neuter. In case of doubt as to the gender of a word, taking no other in-
.
"

formation into account, masculine gender would be the best choice on the
:
s.'!!-
] 8
00
basis of frequency alone.
00
"''''
-
..,.
0-
::t

N 0- 00
'6
'"
<:>i c<i
0-
- -
..,.
There is also a relationship between syllabicity and gender in German. ::E -
-
-
u u
Arndt (1970) showed there to be a correlation between monosyllabicity and
non-feminine gender and between polysyllabicity and non-neuter gender.
"
Kopc.ke's analysis of monosyllabic nouns (Kopcke, 1982, p. 45) shows quite
'0

"

"

different proportions in each gender category compared with the whole lexi-
"

bI)
"
"

con. Of monosyllabic nouns, 64% are masculine, 14% feminine and 22%
'0
1j "
" " 1ii
"-"-
"-
neuter, which confirms Arndt's finding of a disassociation between monosyl-
"
"
'u
:E:E

labic nouns and feminine gender. These associations and disassociations de-
a
00
" "

00 u u u
rive from other morphological and phonetic rules of gender, but they exist
'"

00

.:!l
'"
and can therefore be learned by children independently of the rules which gen-
Cl ::E::E ::E z
erate them.
Altmann and Raettig (1973) investigated the correlation of a selection of

'0
endings with gender primarily in order to demonstrate the possibilities of the
"
"
'"
"
a
bI)
procedure they adopted. In particular, they record not only a positive associa- '0
" "

" "
" "
"

"
.S .S
"
.S
"
tion between an ending and a gender, but also a disassociation. Such disasso-
"
1ii
q
: " '" '"

s
88
"
'3
" " "
.S
'u
.S '8
u u u u
ciations may clearly have relevance for the acquisition process, since the child
a
a
00 00

00

" 00
a "
'" '"
'"
1'i
00
::E::E ::E ::E ::E ::E zz
may learn to eliminate the possibility of one gender before he learns to make a
"
'"
;.l!",
'" '"
positive association with another.
S
"
00
Kopcke's analysis of monosyllabic nouns revealed a considerable number
'0

00
a
of associations with gender based not only on endings, but also on the initial
'"

td
u u
sound. Kopcke describes the status of the rules in quantitative terms, in that

0-0- 00 0- 00
"
00
-
'0
a ..,.
..,.0
..,.
-

'"

00
- he states how many words have the phonetic property and how the nouns are
"
0
0""
- - -
"

distributed across the three genders. The frequency of an ending and the
"
Z
-

strength of the association could be crucial factors in acquisition, since a
a
00
"
S
strong association which affects only a small number of words may fail to be
..!l
-a
'5
'"
s
"
,s. ""d
bI)
salient to a child because of his narrower range of vocabulary.
<>: S
" 00 :g 'iii 'iii

N "
'"

0."

"

"
."
" '"
u
" .-
" Cl
"''''
The phonetic rules are summarized in Table 2.7 from the various sources <Il

'"
(-; (-;(Il N
(Il
already mentioned and from my own analysis using Mater (1967). In order to
"
a
"' be able to relativize the scope of the rule, the data on the number of words to

:' :' :'
I
which the rule can apply and the distribution across the three genders are in- "
.0 .0 .0 .0
S
S
,g

'"
'"
cluded in the table wherever possible.
a
>. U >. r. >. >. '>.
(Il
<8
+-' til mesU C5 C5 0 0
From Table 2.7 it can be seen that there is massive variation in the scope
...:
.
I-< "'I=1UI=l,1=1 I I-<
...
r,Jo'o'o I 0'0 .......
of the individual rule; rule 1 can be compared with rule 8 for this purpose.
c;' '7 u s-;' 1st; S S S 0 s f 'r

"
:: : '-" : :: '-' _..:.:: ,-,,"0 ..... _)Vl '-' " "
Rule 8 may only become visible for the child at a late stage in development
a
""";N ,.; .,f ..,..;-.0 ,..: 00
'"
0 _N
"'
...
- --
34
when the respective items enter his vocabulary. Another question which Zubin
and Kopcke raise (1982) in connection with these phonetic rules is the status of
the lexical items involved, as was discussed above with respect to semantic
rules (pp. 26 - 30). Exceptions to rules are accepted more easily, theyargne,
when such an exception belongs to the lexical core, and it is here that the most
exceptions are to be found. As was mentioned in the discussion of the seman-
tic rules, the child may however perceive the core items as representing the rule
rather than as exceptions, since these would most frequently be the first to be
acquired. Generalizing from exceptions would clearly lead to error. Some evi-
dence will be presented in a later chapter to throw light on the question of how
easily such phonetic rules are acquired and their consequences.
The Interaction of the Rule Types
In English, the semantic and pragmatic rules described above cover the use of
gender. The morphological rules which exist for English can be seen as sec-
ondary, since the semantic rule also applies in every case. For example, wait-
ress has feminine gender, since it refers to a female person; once the natural
gender rule has applied, there are no cases left for the morphological rule
(-ess->fem.) to specify.
In German, the interaction is far more complex, since the rules have dif-
ferent scope and the areas of application overlap. Kopcke, who worked on the
rules of gender attribution in monosyllables, proposed the following hierarchy
(1982, p. 111):
1. Semantic rules
2. Morphological rules
3. Phonetic rules
a. Related to final sounds
b. Related to initial sounds
This hierarchy was used as the basis of a computer programme which assigned
gender to the monosyllabic nouns in German. The programme achieved 75"70
success compared with the actual gender of the nouns. The rules considered,
however, were only a selection of those already presented, since clearly some
rules cannot apply to monosyllabic nouns. Thus, the hierarchy would have to
include, for example, the final element rule, which necessarily orders some
morphological rules before semantic rules. In the word Herrchen 'master (of
an animal)" the gender is neuter because of the diminutive suffix -chen,
although the whole refers to a male person. In the description of the semantic
rules, one group of rules was described as complex because the semantic rules
applied only in the cases where morphological and phonetic rules did not. This
implies a more detailed structuring and reordering of the hierarchy. Poplack,
The Interaction of the Rule Types 35
Ponsada and Sankoff (1982) have argued for a variable process in gender as-
signment.
An interesting but difficult problem for the establishment of a rule hierar-
chy is the number of nouns which allow two, or in rare cases, three different
genders. Where the nouns have different semantic content, the gender assign-
ment can be related to semantic rules (Spiewok, 1975), as for example, the
contrast between der See 'lake' and die See 'sea'. Where the gender differen-
tiation makes no change in meaning, for example, der Pier oder das Pier
'pier', the noun clearly falls under the scope of different rules. Sometimes this
can be accounted for by stylistic or dialect differences, but not in every case. A
formal observation about all such nouns is that nouns rarely vary in having
feminine or neuter gender; the other two combinations of masculine or femi-
nine and neuter or masculine are far more common. Clearly, such a hierarchy
of rules needs to be researched in far more detail before claims can be made
for it.
As has been touched on in the above discussion, there is a distinction to be
made between rules of gender assignment on the basis of their absoluteness.
Kopcke and Zubin (1984, p. 44) distinguish between different levels of gender
assignment: Firstly, categorial rules of gender assignment, such as the Last-
Member Principle; secondly, clusters of nouns which share a common seman-
tic or formal feature and where, in most cases, there are exceptions; and third-
ly, the set of exceptions to the above principles. Very few of the gender assign-
ment principles discussed in the proceeding sections have 100"70 applicability.
The relative strengths of these principles is clearly relevant in establishing a hi-
erarchy.
It is a frequent but often only implicit goal of liuguistic description that
the grammar should approximate psycholinguistic processing in adults and
the acquisition process in children. Such a hierarchy of rules could imply that
children will learn the different types of rule in that hierarchical order. This
was argued by Keeuan and Comrie (1977) in connection with the hierarchy of
noun phrase accessibility in relative clauses; the psychological testing of the
hierarchy showed only partial matching, however (Keenan, Comrie & Haw-
kins, 1974).
It seems plausible to argue, however, that rules which are high on a hier-
archy and which therefore have a greater scope than others will be learned ear-
lier. On the other hand, factors such as input which cannot so easily be related
to a hierarchical ordering cau be relevant in acquisition. The dominance of
one rule over another has to be learned and may not be simultaneous with the
learning of the rules themselves. Thus, a child may learn the morphological
rule assigning nouns with the suffix -chen to neuter gender and the rule assign-
ing nouns having female referents to feminine gender, but the child may not
know which rule dominates in the case of a conflict such as in Miidchen. Some
evidence will be presented from empirical and observational findings related
to this question of the hierarchy of rules in adults and in acquisition.
36
Function
In Chapter 1, the functionalist perspective was discussed in connection with
the origin of the gender and noun classification systems in general. The gener-
al conclusion was that no essential functions for gender could be found which
would explain its existence, but that once the system existed, it would take on
certain functions, A follow-up question is whether the functions which the
gender system then assumes are essential functions in themselves, so that in a
language with a more limited or no gender system, these functions would be
fulfilled by other systems, In comparing English and German, it will be seen
that some functions are pertinent to gender marking on the articles and there-
fore only pertain to German; others are pertinent to gender marking on the
pronouns and thus pertain to both languages. Where functions are fulfilled by
the gender systems of both English and German, they will be compared to in-
dicate the varying importance of the systems in this respect.
Anticipation of Content
Since nouns in German are distributed across three genders, the selection of a
gender-marked modifier (article, adjective etc.) reduces the number of possi-
ble nouns being referred to. The mention of a gender-marked form in relation
to a following noun allows the listener, on hearing the gender-marked form
to anticipate the noun that will be referred to by using additional
from the semantic and pragmatic context. Clark and Clark (1977, pp. 61, 75)
talk of such anticipation in relation to the comprehension process. Zubin and
Kopcke (1983) give, as an illustration of this function, the context of two
friends looking at a landscape whereby one says:
Guck mal. Das groBe, im Garten stehende Haus.
'Look. The large in the garden standing house.'
In the context of having the same mutual gaze, after the mention of the neuter
gender article das, the listener can anticipate all possible references having
that gender. Using the following linguistic information, the possibilities can
be further reduced, until the house is the obvious referent.
Marking of the Onset of a Noun Phrase
Articles and declined adjectives in German mark the beginning of a noun
phrase and, assuming some form of chronological processing takes place, can
be used as a cue to the listener in comprehension to search in the following in-
formatIOn for the noun. This function is not restricted to those languages
which have gender. In German, however, it is possible to iusert left-branching
Function 37
relative clauses into a noun phrase, as for example in sentence 15, which can
mean that another noun phrase intervenes between the gender-marked form,
in this case, the article and the head noun.
(15) Der die Landschaft beschreibende Brief ist mir abhanden gekommen.
'the (masc.) the (fern.) landscape (fern.) describing letter (masc.) is for me lost. = I
have lost the letter describing the landscape' .
The listener, upon hearing der marking masculine gender will wait for a mas-
culine gender noun in the correct case as the cue that the noun phrase can be
closed. Clearly, the intonation patterns on such clauses and the presence of
other markers in the clause assist the listener in determining which noun
should be the head. The gender marking nevertheless could allow the whole to
be processed more easily.
On similar lines, the gender-marked form helps the listener identify the
head noun in a nominal compound where the compound is made up of nouns
of different genders, since, as discussed earlier (pp. 30- 31), the last noun in a
compound determines the gender of the whole.
Gender marking in these instances increases the syntagmatic cohesion of
German, which apparently has a facilitating effect on processing. This cannot
be achieved by stress alone, which may explain why such complex construc-
tions are limited in English compared with German.
Distinction of Singular and Plural
The plural form in German does not distinguish gender in articles and adjec-
tives. In all cases except the dative, the plural marking is similar to feminine
gender forms. Most nouns have clear plural marking, so that singular and plu-
ral can be distinguished by the marking of the noun aione, as in Lampe (fem.
sing.) and Lampen (pl.). Those nouns which have zero plural marking, how-
ever, can only be distinguished in number by the preceding gender-marked
form in the singular or the plural form. Such nouns are always of neuter or
masculine gender, so that this distinction is always clear, for example, der
Loffel (masc. sing.) 'spoon' and die Loffel (pl.) or das Kiitzchen (neut. sing.)
'kitten' and die Kiitzchen (pl.).
Lexical Structuring
Zubin and Kopcke (1983), in their article describing the large number of se-
mantic rules related to gender in German, argue that the organization of the
lexicon into areas associated with a particular gender or the contrast of areas
through a contrast in gender assists the speaker in lexical access. Other au-
thors have also discussed the function which can be assumed by gender of al-
lowing contrasts and similarities to be established in the lexicon throngh mem-
bership in different or similar classes (e.g. Hjelmslev, 1959; Wienold, 1967).
The additional psycholinguistic functiou which Zubin and Kopcke wish to
ascribe to gender is the greater ease of lexical access which the speaker gains
thereby. There is no experimental evidence on this point available at the pre-
sent time.
Anaphoric Reference
Important in both English and German is the function of anaphoric indexing.
Througb the three different gender-marked forms in both languages, refer-
ence can be made non-ambiguous to a preceding noun phrase, where other-
wise more precise information from the context or use of a different construc-
tion would be required to specify identity. Sentences 16a-16c and 17a-17c
illustrate this possibility.
(16a) Maria fotografierte Tobias vor dem Haus, als sie 10 Jahre alt war.
(16b) Maria fotografierte Tobias vcr dem Haus, als er 10 Jahre alt war.
(16c) Maria fotografierte Tobias vor dem Haus, als es 10 Jahre alt war.
(17a) Mary photographed Toby in front of the house, when she was 10 years old.
(17b) Mary photographed Toby in front of the house, when he was 10 years old.
(17c) Mary photographed Toby in front of the house, when it was 10 years old.
Clearly, this is only possible under certain circumstances. In German, the pos-
sibilities of disambiguation using gender are greater than in English, since the
distribution of nouns across the three genders is more evenly spread. Thus,
reference to inanimate nouns can be made non-ambiguous, which is not possi-
ble in English, as a comparison of sentence 18 with sentence 19 shows:
(18) Das Bild liegt auf meinem Schreibtisch. Er (der Schreibtisch) ist sehr alt.
(19) The picture is lying on my desk. It is very old.
Formally, sentence 19 is ambiguous in the reference of it. However, English
speakers will take the reference of it to be to picture on the basis of the topic
being associated with the subject of the first sentence and preserved in dis-
course unless a change is signalled.
Deictic Reference
It is possible in both English and German to make unambiguous reference to
an entity which has not occurred explicitly in the previous linguistic context
Function
39
using the gender-marked pronouns. Thus, in contexts in which several entities
could be referred to, the gender-marked pronouns will specify reference to
one of the entities as long as they are of different genders. In sentences 20 and
21, the linguistic reference to a couple (the Smiths) introduces the possibility
of referring to either the man or the woman using a pronoun only; the use of
the masculine pronoun here makes specific reference to the man.
(20) The Smiths were over to dinner last week. He has gone very grey.
(21) Die Schrnidts waren ietzte Woche bei uns zum Abendessen. Er sieht schon sehr
grau aus.
The introduction of the possibility of referring to one of a couple can also be
established by gesture or by mutual gaze, as in sentences 22 and 23.
(22) (looking at a,man and woman) He's badly dressed but she's not.
(23) (looking at a man and woman) Er ist schlampig angezogen, sie aber nicht.
It must be noted that, in German, this use is not possible with all nouns,
for example, der Computer (masc.) 'computer' or die Schreibmaschine (fern.)
'typewriter', since the use relies on the semantic opposition which exists be-
tween the masculine and feminine genders when referring to natural gender. A
computer and a typewriter do not form a pair in which such an opposition is
present. This point will be elaborated in the next section.
In the limited context of contact advertisements in German, the pronouns
er und sie have been nominalized and have the meaning of 'male person' or
'female person' respectively, as for example in sentence 24.
(24) HausIicher Er sucht gutverdienende Sie zwecks Heirat.
'domestic he (man) seeks she (woman) with a good income for marriage.'
Again, the use relies on the semantic opposition of natural gender.
Functional Importauce of the MalelFemale Opposition
As was seen in the previous section, disambiguating use of gender-marked
pronouns in German relies in some instances on the presence of a semantic op-
position, the opposition being between male and female natural gender. We
have discovered new evidence for the importance of both the presence of the
semantic opposition and the opposition in formal gender marking in the area
of linguistic contrast. In English, the semantic opposition is necessarily pre-
sent when the pronouns he and she are used, and these can be contrasted as
sentence 25 illustrates.
(25) The professor and her husband visited us yesterday. She is much older than him.
In German, contrast is only possible when both the semantic and the gramma-
tical oppositions are present (see sentence 26 as the German version of 25).
Where the grammatical opposition alone is present, as in sentence 27, it
becomes unacceptable for German speakers, although the grammatical refer-
ence is formally unambiguous.
(26) Die Profess orin und ihr Mann besuchten uns gestern. Er ist viel alter als sie.
(27) Ein Computer und eine Schreibmaschine stehen im BUre. Er ist viel alter als sie.
'A computer and a typewriter are in the. office. It (rnase. = computer) is much
older than it (fern. = typewriter).'
This observation holds for other contrastive contexts as the following sen-
tences illustrate.
(28) Tom und Maria sind in def Kuche. ?Er ist schon reif, sie nieht.
'Tom and Mary are in the kitchen. He is mature, she isn't.'
(29) Der Apfel und die Bime sind in der Kliche.
?Er ist schon reif, sie niehL
'The apple and the pear are in the kitchen.
It (mase. = apple) is already ripe, it (fern. = pear) isn't.'
(30) Die Lewin liegt neben dem Lowen. Sie ist dunn und er ist dick.
'The lioness is lying next to the lion. She is thin and he is fat.'
(31) Die Jacke liegt neben dem Pullover.
?Sie ist dunn und er ist dick.
'The jacket is lying next to the jumper. If (fern. = jacket) is thin and it
(masc. = jumper) is thick.'
It is clear that the problem lies with the linguistic contrast, since the sentences
become acceptable as soon as this contrast is taken out. Sentence 31 is ac-
ceptable if only one of the conjoined elements is produced, as in sentences 32a
and 32b.
(32a) Die Jacke iiegt neben dem Pullover. Sie ist dunn.
(32b) Die Jacke liegt neben dem Pullover. Er ist dick.
It is only when a contrast is made that the masculine and feminine gramma-
tical gender pronouns cannot take on this function. 11 Contrast is dependent
on a semantic coherence of the contrasted items (Werth, 1984, p. 158), which
11 It must be noted that sentences 27 and 29 are unacceptable, even when the contrast
is not explicit in the second part of the clause. This is because the contrastive context
is already established in the first clause through the conjunction of the two noun
phrases. When the one noun phrase is mentioned in the second clause, the contrast
with the other noun phrase is made implicitly (Werth, 1984, pp. 131-165). This
property of conjunction was noted also by E. Lang (1977, pp. 42-43).
Summary 41
is present only when these grammatical forms are associated with natural
gender.
The strength of the semantic coherence between the forms marking
animacy and inanimacy can therefore also be tested using the context of lin-
guistic contrast. Sentences with such a contrast, for example 33 and 34, are
problematic, however, for the majority of English and German speakers.
(33) The man fetched the parcel from the station.
?It was heavy and he was tired.
(34) Der Mann holte das Paket vom Bahnhof abo
?Es war schwer und er war mude.
In English, the lack of acceptability of such sentences may be due to the
problem of using it in association with any stress (Kuroda, 1968, pp.
250 - 251), which is necessary in a contrastive context. However, the pronoun
it functions not only to indicate inanimate, but also common gender (see pp.
20 - 23), which suggests that the association of it with inanimacy will be
weakened by this double function. This may be the reason that it cannot carry
stress; that is, the semantic opposition is not clear enough for the contrast to
be made.
In German, there are also problems in using the neuter pronoun, es, in as-
sociation with any stress. The semantic opposition inanimate/animate is also
even less clear in the gender system than in English, since neuter is only to be
identified with inanimacy in a few forms (see pp. 17 - 20).
In conclusion, the male and female semantic features play an important
part in the function of carrying contrast, in German as well as in English.
Grammatical gender alone cannot carry this function. This implies a strong
connection between grammatical gender and the related sex feature from the
point of view of function.
Summary
From the description of the rules pertaining to gender in German, it can be
seen that rules of gender assignment exist in three different areas; phonetics,
morphology and semantics. There are also a considerable number of such
rules. Gender is quite clearly not an arbitrary classification, as has been
argued elsewhere (e.g. Maratsos & Chalkely, 1980). The implications of this
description for acquisition is that children have the possibility of learning such
rules and do not have to rely on rote. The large number of rules suggests that
learning will take place over a longer period. A small number of nouns, how-
ever, appear not to fall under the scope of any rule; the gender of these must
be learned by rote.
There are a limited number of rules in English, which cover all nouns and
which are related to semantic and pragmatic features of the referent. Here, the
child also has the possibility of learning the rules rather than learning the use
of a pronoun in reference to a particular noun by rote. The reduced number of
rules suggest that English children have less to learn than German children
and that therefore their acquisition will be faster in this area.
In German, there are not only a large number of rules but also different
rules of different types. There appears to be a hierarchy among these rules in
terms of economy of gender assignment (Kopcke, 1982). Acquisition data will
show what principles determine the order of acquisition and how these are
related to the formal criteria.
The natural gender rule in German was shown to be just one of many
semantic rules, unlike its status in English. From the discussion of functions
of gender, however, it was demonstrated that the natural gender feature has
more functional importance in German than has hitherto been claimed. The
functional load associated with this feature would suggest that the natural
gender rule would be more salient and acquired therefore more quickly by
German children than other semantic rules.
CHAPTER 3
Rules and Speakers' Behaviour
When considering the acquisition of an area in a language, the formal proper-
ties of the system are clearly of relevance in making predicitions about the
order and speed of learning. Part of the linguistic background for the child is
however not only the formal properties of the area, but how other speakers
behave with respect to those properties. The psycholinguistic evidence on the
productivity of a rule, for example, shows that the rule has a different status
in the input for the child, which must be considered in describing acquisition.
This chapter presents what is known about adults' behaviour with respect to
gender; this information is then related to questions of acquisition.
The Psychological Status of Morphological and Phonetic Rules
of Gender Assignment of German Nouns
Evidence from Loan Words
When nouns are borrowed into German from other languages, they have to be
assigned to a grammatical gender. Since this is an ongoing process, the current
status of the gender-assigning rules can be investigated by looking at data
from this area. 12 Weinreich (1968, p. 45) collected data from several lan-
guages which clearly showed the importance of such structural rules. English
is the most important source language of loan words in German at the present
time (Galinsky, 1980; Viereck, 1980), and its importance is increasing (see
Engels, 1976). The discussion therefore concentrates mainly on loan words
from English.
Clearly, the source language, if it has gender marking itself, can influence
the gender given to the loan word in the recipient language, as was the case in
Middle English with French and Latin nouns. With English loan words bor-
12 The word 'current' should be emphasized here, since Surridge (1984) has shown for
French that the inter-relationship of gender-assigning rules can change with time,
that is, one rule can be dominant at one point in time but not at another. Compare
the description of rules for German in Polzin (1903).
44 Rules and Speakers' Behaviour
rowed into German, the structural rules of the recipient language, that is Ger-
man, seem to have a considerable influence on gender assignment. Although it
might be argued that the use of the neuter pronoun it would lead to a
dominance of neuter assignment, the English gender system does not in fact
appear to influence German.
Arndt (1970) described the rules of gender assignment related to syllaba-
city not only from his analysis of German (see pp. 32 - 34), but also from a
corpus of loan words in German. In a considerable number of cases, the
lexical equivalent in German has a different gender from that of the loan word
so that semantic similarity must be seen as one of several factors (see pp.
50-51). The syllabacity rules appear to apply equally to loan words. This is
substantiated by Carstensen (1980a, 1980b), who particularly emphasizes the
association of monosyllabic words with masculine gender, for example, der
Stress or der Song. 13
Carstensen also discusses morphological factors which can be seen to in-
fluence gender assignment to English loan words in German (see also Sim-
mons, 1971). The phonetic rules of gender assignment have not been in-
vestigated so closely in connection with loan words, since the description of
these rules is comparatively recent. 14 Of the morphological rules, several are
clearly influential. English loan words which have the -er suffix-denoting
agent are masculine; this morphological rule overlaps with the semantic rules
of natural and common gender, as was noted earlier (pp. 16 -17). Other
nouns with the -er suffix are also masculine, such as der Pullover or der
Slipper. Nouns ending with -ster are also masculine probably because of the
-er ending. English nouns derived from Latin which are then borrowed into
German take the gender of those words with the same suffixes which were
borrowed directly from Latin into German, for example, nouns with the
-ment ending are neuter, while nouns in -tion are feminine. Another group of
nouns have gender assigned to them not on the basis of the form of the suffix
directly, but on the similar semantics of the suffix. Thus, gerundive nouns
having the nominalizing ending -ing are neuter in German parallel to the
nominalized infinitives ending in -en; nouns ending in -ness, the nominalizing
morpheme suffixed to adjectives, such as fitness, are feminine in German,
parallel to the gender associated with the equivalent morphemes -keit and -heit
(not the phonetically more similar -nis). Nouns ending in the abstract
nominalizer -ship are feminine parallel to German -schaft, and those ending in
the nominalizer -ity are feminine parallel to the German -Wit.
13 Syllabacity has also been shown to be important in gender assignment in other lan-
guages, including gender assignment to loan words borrowed into those languages,
for example, English loan words into French (Surridge, 1982).
14 Such factors are again relevant for loan words into other languages, for example,
loan words into Canadian French (Barbaud, Ducharme & Valois, 1981) or Dutch
words into French (Baetens-Beardsmore, 1971).
The Psychological Status of Morphological and Phonetic Rules 45
These data are evidence that certain morphological and structural rules of
gender are productive. Some rules may be productive but not appear in such
data because the language from which the words are borrowed does not have
the particular structure. For example, English loan words provide no evidence
ofthe productivity of the rule (-e .... fem.), since English nouns do not have this
phonetic structure. This must be considered when searching for evidence of
the non-productivity of morphological and phonetic rules. An experimental
approach can avoid this problem by testing the gender assignment to invented
words. It is possible to include in the test list words of all the phonetic struc-
tures of interest.
The Experimental Testing of the Use of Phonetic Rules iu Gender
Assignment in Adult German Speakers
The data frolll loan words as collected to date mainly provides evidence on the
productivity of morphological rules; phonetic rules have been neglected in this
area. But, as was mentioned above, the psychological reality of phonetic rules
can be more thoroughly investigated using experimentation. 15 Some of the
rules for monosyllabic nouns described by Kopcke (1982) were tested using
nonsense words in an extended version of the study by Kopcke and Zubin
(1981).
Method. A list of 44 nonsense words which were examples of the nine rules
under test was presented to the subjects. The words were constructed so that
some words illustrated individual rules only and other words combinations of
rules (see Table 3.1 for a list of the rules and Appendix A for a list of the
words tested). For example, Knaffhas the structure necessary for the applica-'-
tion of rule 1, while Knump has the structure appropriate for the application
of rules 1, 4 and 5.
The subjects were 30 adult native speakers of Southern Germany, 15 men
and 15 women aged between 20 and 25 years; aU were students of the Univer-
sity of TUbingen and were voluntary participants in the experiment. The
subjects were tested in one session in a lecture room of the university. They
were presented with a typed list of the nonsense words distributed face down;
on the list, two versions of each word were given with two of the possible three
definite articles (see Appendix A). Half the subjects received a list in the order
1 - 44 (see Appendix A), half received a list with the reverse order. The experi-
15 Gender appears to be a psychologically salient element as judged from experimental
results with English-Spanish bilinguals (Goggin, 1974). When a change in gender of
Spanish nouns was included in the last trial, a release in proactive interference was
observed. Such experiments have not been carried out with German speakers, so
that the conclusion cannot be generalized. The result may d e p ~ n d on the phonetic
structure of the words.
46
00
'"
" -0
""
'" S
~
" 0
,...
,0
00
-0
~

"
00
~
"
00
~
0
Z
8
E
"
.1
<

"
-0
~
" 0
...i
,,;
..;
'" b
~ ~
O'$-
b ~
~
'$-
~
~ ~
"V>
~
~ 5
~
~
;;:;
~
~
II
"
::E5
-0
" t;
"
~
o 00
-0
0
~
0
z ~
-0
~
0
~
~
00
II
~
0
~
'"

Oll

a
NOONOOo-.r-<"""INr-
OOI.OI.Ot-oooor-OOOO>ri
Rules and Speakers' Behaviour
The Psychological Status of Morphological and Phonetic Rules 47
menter (the author) explained to the subjects that they would see two versions
of words which do not exist in German and that they should indicate on the
paper which version, i.e. which definite article, they felt was appropriate. An
example was written on the board to illustrate the procedure. The subjects
were then asked to turn over the sheet and begin.
When all subjects had completed the task, they were then asked to note if
they had related the nonsense word to any existing word when marking the
gender assignment. It was emphasized that this should be recorded only in
those instances where the association was clear. The associations were consid-
ered of interest in order to investigate the principles by which subjects made
an association. It is then possible to distinguish an association made on the
basis of the rule under test from an association made on the basis of other
principles. Although the results of Kopcke and Zubin clearly seem to show use
of all nine rules, they refer to the possibility that subjects assign gender by
analogy with a particular lexical item rather than by general rule, as Clyne
(1969, p. 224) has also claimed. 16 The analysis of associations should make it
possible to explore this suggestion further.
Results and Discussion. The proportion of 'correct' gender assignment is
given in Table 3.1. The results from the study conducted by Zubin and
Kopcke are given in the table for the purposes of comparison. They tested ten
adult native speakers from Northern Germany (sex distribution not given).
Seven of the nine rules showed a significantly high proportion of gender
assignment according to the rule. The scores were tested for their significant
deviance from the null hypothesis, which was based on an equal distribution
across all three genders in proportion to the number of possible responses.
Rules 2 and 3 showed no greater choice of masculine gender. Kopcke and
Zubin did not present the results of these rules separately, but pooled the re-
sponses from rules 1, 2 and 3. If this is done, a similar figure emerges (62"70
compared with 64%), but this blurs the finding that, of the three, only rule 1 is
clearly salient. Rule 9 was not significantly present in the female subjects but
was significantly demonstrated in the male subjects. 17 The results of Kopcke
and Zubin for this rule were also lower. In general, there is considerable con-
formity between the results of Kopcke and Zubin and those of this experi-
ment.
The analysis of the associations with real words is presented in Table 3.2.
The number of associations varied considerably, depending on the rule in-
16 Clyne postulated that "Genuszuordnung sehr stark von Ana/ogie insbesondere
Reimana/ogie her bestimmt [ist]" (1969, p. 224). (Translation: 'Gender allocation is
determined to a great extent by analogy, in particular analogy on the basis of
rhyme') .
17 It is possible that this difference is to be attributed to dialect. Rule 9 appears to be
strong in the local Swabian dialect, and it has been maintained that male speakers in
general orient themselves more to dialect than female speakers (Trudgill, 1975). -----------------
48 Rules and Speakers' Behaviour The Psychological Status of Morphological and Phonetic Rules 49

SSSS 8SS
S
"d ill <1.l il.l volved. The overall number of associations given for each rule has to be con-

(l),.s:::1 <I) ..c
N ........... !=l ......
sidered when interpreting the entry in each column. The associations are cate- NNN\O

M
Oil 0
S
c ...... "'"''''''' '-'"
-
!=l c ......
gorized according to whether the associated word has the gender predicted by
13
e ''8 g en
-
(--"<tI.ON _t-N \O_lrl\Ot-
p. IJ) "d)
the rule or a different gender, that is, whether it is an exception. These two
0
t- (1)
f-;
.". f'1')"""_
- -
_-:::tMMN M <l,)Vl..cU
categories are divided into four types: (a) where the associated word conforms M

to the rule, (b) where the ending of the word is identical to the ending of the

>. il.l I::' :::
'd
'"g S .....
nonsense test word, (c) where the beginning is identical or (d) where the word

-s
'';:::
0
0 has similarity in other respects. It can be seen quite clearly that the majority of

0
___ 0
000 00_00
'"

"0 ...... ......
associated words conformed to the rule. It might be suggested that this is due
'" bJJ
..c ro

bJJ
to a general principle of looking for a rhyme association, that is, an identical

..cS='Vl

U (l) I-< q
;El..co ending. Rules 1, 2, 3 and 5, however, involve the beginning of the words, and 0

'50 o ro
there is a considerable proportion of associations which conformed to the rule
S
"d ...... <1)'0
0
<!l 00 000 OOOM ...... .".
I-< '1j IJ) 0
here, too. This goes against the argument that only the end of the word deter-
'"

0 '" mines the associations.
bJJ
<I.) ;::I ...... <I)
'd

l:3 OIj:O
If gender selection is examined in the case of rules 2 and 3 for each of the
o.S 'til
bJJ
iil
("1')"""OM MOO 0 00.....,00
::: "0 OJ) Vl
four nonsense words tested, it becomes clear that, in each group of four, one
<Il
-
Oro=: 0

-
M
Ii
= .s:::: .9 A
05 of the nonsense words had considerably fewer masculine choices than the ro ...... v ......

...... ..0 0

other three. For rule 2 this was the word Troch and for rule 3 the word Schlafl.
.- [)
r>:
-
0000 0_0 0 00
u
If the data from associations are considered here, the dominant associations N M
Q !=l ...... e

'"
0
0
0 ;:3
S with Troch were words with a similar ending but different gender, namely
';::J "0 ...... !=I
t
5 g? 8 Joch and Loch (neuter). The analogy of the ending would appear in this case
U
6
g :a ;::I
-
ONOO 00_
0 00000 .".
i.2 "0 1-0 S
i
to be stronger than the rule based on the initial consonants. The word associ-
ro Ol) 0 .-

'-(
ated with Schlafl was Schlofl (neuter), which is the one exception to rule 3. The
bJJ
S '0 ro S
analogy is strong enough in this case to override the rule. If these two words
.
0"0 Ol)
.:.;
I
are excluded from the analysis, the percentage of rule-conforming responses

r>:
(masculine) rises to 69"10 in each case which is at a significant level. For rule 6,

'd <!l NO 000
ro ....... Ol)
the nonsense word Goch! was also associated with Doch! (masc.), which 'd 0 0000...-1 M
'i<'

0
0 :'9 u
- reduced the percentage of feminine choices in this rule, although it was still
;:. 0 Ol) ..... 00
o "0
'"
"

C
otherwise significant.
M
5.3",..0

0'-"0 1-0
:
bJJ
The rules would therefore appear to influence choice of gender signifi-

"S
....... 1-0 0

'6
o bJJ

candy, but can be in conflict with a direct association with a specific word.
0
'2 0
N
0
'd

........ .".00 0 00000
'i'
....... "O.-
Z <Il 00"0 Ol) "0 'd
The evidence presented above suggests that associations are important in the
0
'"
ro Ol) ....... I::

Ol) Ol)
'" selection of the gender given to the nonsense word, but that these associations 1-0 00 U u
'd 'd
Ol) ro 0'-

N'

Ol) '" '0
also usually reflect the rule.

-
-.". M

!l,
00 1-0

..2 22

0 0
This raises the question of the frequency and status of the exceptions. In 0
S
"
"
"S
" '"

0
..2 b b

b b
'"0 ;:....c:: 0.

ro 0 0
E Chapter 2, the frequency of each rule was given in Table 2.7 together with the
'"
" '" N

N
-(
r>:
-
I:: ...t:1 -ci S 0
0
'"
N
-
M MM N N
number of exceptions. When the rules tested in the experimental task are ... ro
'"

S 0'"
-( ... 0

ranked according to their scope and number of exceptions, the number of

'd

" "
0 ....... 00 .......
"" rule-governed responses in the task appears to be affected by both these fac-
:.:::1:.:::1
. .
'"
0
8 B B B

.!i

MOU.S,O
tors, although the number of exceptions is clearly the stronger influence. On a

'sa
....... .0 1::;>
'" '"

"iil
'd
S S S S
v o 0 ro E 00
Spearman's Rank Correlation test, the coefficient between the number of
OJ
0. ....... I::..c:: :::;I I-<
0
t t t t

exceptions and the number of rule-governed responses in the test is significant t t t t
....
U
'" '" '"
2li)-E]uS
(r,= -0.77, p<0.05). Thus, for example, the rules 7 and 8
M

+ + +
0.0 -0 ...... ....... t!, ;::::l

< 0 ... 0 >=l
"'.". .". .".
( - et->neut.) have a low number of exceptions and have the highest response

6
,
uu++ + + + +
................. co
o I-< 0 S 0
..2
'-( ::Ii"" 'T 13
0.0
0
-0 .....

...
'00 U _ N
M _
N M
strength. They also are high on the ranking of scope. Rule 9 (- ii:lr->neut.),
r>:
0
M '"
f-; Ol
on the other hand, has the highest number of exceptions, a low scope and the
lowest response strength. Rule 6 (- t-+fem.) has a fairly large scope, but a
high number of exceptions which produces a moderate response strength.
As was mentioned earlier (pp. 26 - 50), Zubin and Kopcke (1982) relate
the division of the lexicon into core, system and periphery with the notion of
the tolerance of exceptions: Exceptions will cluster in the core and periphery,
not in the system. It is not clear what the lexical status of words such as SchlojJ
and Docht may be, but it is obvious from these results that, as exceptions to
the rule, they influence gender assignment to words with similar endings. It
may be the case that these terms belong to the system and not to the core and
are therefore more salient as exceptions. In acquisition, the questions of the
frequency of a rule and the status of a lexical item become far more complex
since a child's lexicon is fluctuating and continually growing. Exceptions to
the rule can be crucial to gender assignment and may be perceived as constitut-
ing the rule at a certain point.
For adult native speakers, then, several of the phonetic rules have been
shown to be relevant to the assignment of gender to unknown words, even
though individual word associations cannot be eliminated entirely. In their
progress towards becoming adult speakers, children will acquire this
behaviour at some point in their acquisition of gender assignment. With data
from German children, we will explore the question of how this behaviour is
learned.
The Psychological Status of Semantic Rules of Gender
Assignment
Evidence from Loan Words
A principle discussed frequently in the literature on loan words is that of
gender assignment according to the closest lexical equivalent in the borrower
language. Clyne (1967, p. 42) and Oehmann (1969) see this principle as the
most important in determining the gender of loan words in German; other
authors, such as Ibrahim (1973, pp. 61- 62), Arndt (1970, p. 245) and Gregor
(1983, pp. 58 - 59) list this merely as one of the factors. Carstensen (1980a,
pp. 15 -17) lists many counter-examples to this principle and concludes:
We have to realize that the principle of the closest lexical equivalent can be
applied in a number of cases, but certainly not in all. It is obvious that we
face linguistic factors in this loan-process for which there are no linguistic ex-
planations and which even seem to be arbitrary (p. 17).
It is possible, however, that this principle may not exist as such at all, but
merely appear to do so. If the detailed semantic rules set out by Zubin and
Kopcke (1983) are characteristic of the network of semantic rules existing in
The Psychological Status of Semantic Rules of Gender Assignment 51
German, then it is feasible that loan words are assigned gender on the basis of
these rules rather than according to the gender of the closest equivalent. Clear-
ly, the closest lexical equivalent is likely to have the same gender, since it also
falls under the scope of the rule, hence the evidence in support of this
principle. The English loan word der Brandy, for example, can be explained,
according to the closest lexical equivalent principle, as having masculine
gender from der Branntwein (Aron, 1930, p. 21). However, according to
Zubin and Kopcke's rules (see Table 2.6, rule 21) Brandy would be masculine
because beverages are generally masculine. The assignment of gender to loan
words needs to be investigated under this aspect to establish . whether more
general semantic principles are relevant. Whatever the outcome of such an in-
vestigation, the semantic content of a lexical item in German is relevant to the
gender assignment to the item.
Of all the semantic rules, the natural gender rule would appear to be of
the greatest importance in connection with loan words. According to the
evidence, it has the status of a 'knock-out factor' in terms of a hierarchy of
gender assignment rules.
Conflict of Semantic and Grammatical Gender in German
The interaction of gender assignment rules has been described in a previous
section (see pp. 34- 35), and in that connection, Kopcke's proposed hierarchy
of rules has been discussed. According to this hierarchy, semantic rules of
gender assignment dominate other types of rule, semantic rules necessarily
including the natural gender rule. 18 In those instances where the referent has
natural gender but the grammatical gender of the noun has not been assigned
according to the natural gender rule, there arises a conflict between the
natural gender of the referent and the grammatical gender of the noun. It is
possible in such conflict situations to observe speakers' tendencies to orient
themselves according to the natural gender or the grammatical gender and so
to establish the strength of the natural gender rule in relation to grammatical
gender.
Corbett (1979a, 1979b) has investigated instances of such mismatches in
various languages (French, German, Russian, Spanish, Latin) principally to
establish the notion of an agreement hierarchy, that is, the structural position
in which it is most likely for a switch to be made from grammatical gender to
natural gender. In German, this switch is generally possible in the personal
pronouns only, not in the relative pronoun or attributive as in some other lan-
guages. It is now usual in German for the personal pronoun to agree with the
natural gender of the head noun, not with the grammatical gender; thus, for
18 A. Lang (1976) carried out a test to show the importance of semantic rules in
German. The rules were mixed with different morphological rules so that the results
cannot be interpreted.
example, in reference to das Miidchen 'the girl', the pronoun will have
feminine gender, not neuter (compare sentences 35a and 35b). This use has
become more common over time. 19
(35a) Das Madchen hat ihre Tasche dagelassen.
'The girl has left her bag behind' .
(35b) Das Miidchen hat seine Tasche dageiassen.
'The girl has left its (pass. neuter) bag behind'.
It is comparatively rare for the switch to natural gender to be made in other
positions, although Curme (1960, pp. 546 - 548) does cite some instances, for
example, the relative pronoun, article and attributive adjective. A diminutive
can also take natural gender and not neuter (see sentences 36 - 38 taken from
Curme).
(36) Bitte, griiBen Sie das gnadige Fraulein, die so gut is!.
'Please greet the noble young lady (neu!.), who (fern.) is so good'.
(37) Der Herrchen darf nicht schelten.
'The (masc.) master (neu!.) must not scold'.
(38) Du, schonste der Weiber!
'You, most beautiful (fern.) of women' (neut.).
Elsa Lattey (personal communication, 1984) also found a switch to
natural gender to be common in such cases of a mismatch. In addition, she
discovered in her sample that female subjects made the switch more frequently
than male subjects, which suggests that for female speakers the natural gender
rule has more salience than for male speakers. Age may be a significant factor
here.
In an investigation of children's literature to be reported later (pp.
120 - 122), it was observed that authors went to great lengths to avoid mis-
matches between grammatical gender and natural gender. Proper names or
sex-specific roles are added to the animal name to establish the sex, for
example, Hasenliese 'rabbit Liese' for a female rabbit since Hase has mascu-
line gender, or Miiusekonig 'king mouse' for a male mouse since Maus has
female gender. This avoidance of conflict has been commented on in several
grammars. For example, v.d. Gabelentz (1891, p. 234) wrote that speakers
will avoid using the term Mensch (masc.) 'person' to refer to a woman and in
the same way avoid Person (fem.) to refer to a man.
Reference in conformity with natural gender appears to be preferred by
adult speakers, which implies that the natural gender rule has an elevated
status with respect to other rules. In acquisition, this elevated status can clear-
ly affect children, in that they might acquire this rule more quickly than the
19 Mark Twain's ridiculing of the "confusion of sex" in German is not as appropriate
today as it was in 1879.
other rules. Further evidence of the status of the natural gender rule will be
presented in the following section.
A Study of Metaphorical Extension in German
In German as in English, it is possible to refer to male and female human
beings using nouns which refer under normal circumstances to a non-human
referent. A term of endearment for a female in both languages is for example
Tiiubchen or dove; a term of abuse is alte Schachtel 'old box' or old bag.
Whereas the English terms will be pronominalized according to the natural
gender of the referent, not with the pronoun it according to the inanimacy of
the term in its non-metaphorical use, the German nouns used in such expres-
sions have a grammatical gender which does not change according to the sex
of the referent. The distribution of such terms in German was investigated to
establish whether there exists a correlation between the natural gender of the
human referent and the grammatical gender of the selected metaphorical
expression. Such a correlation would suggest that adult speakers are aware at
some level of the natural gender connotations of grammatical gender and
therefore select preferably those terms to use as metaphors which have the
same gender as the human referent.
The data for this investigation was abstracted from Bornemann's (1971)
dictionary Sex im Volksmund, in which terms used to refer to women and men
are listed under various headings. The material for the dictionary was collect-
ed by Bornemann from the prostitute milieu of several cities, so that the col-
lection contains both standard metaphorical terms and more unusual, if not
exotic expressions. This was not seen as affecting the investigation adversely. 20
If no correlation is to be expected, all terms will be distributed across the three
genders in the porportion in which the three genders occur in the language.
These proportions are, as calculated by Bauch (1971), 500/0 masculine, 30%
feminine and 200/0 neuter. Excluded from the analysis were those terms which
had reference to a human being as central to their meaning, such as proper
names, but terms which conflicted with the natural gender were included.
The results of the investigation are presented in Table 3.3. The terms for
men and women are listed separately. Each list is divided into six sections:
(1) those words referring, in their literal meaning, to a sex-marked animal, (2)
those referring to a generic animal term, (3) diminutives, (4) inanimates and
abstracts and (5) human terms where the grammatical gender is in conflict
with natural gender.
20 Reviewers of Bornemann's dictionary, including Kutter (1972), Lutzmann (1975),
Mohn (1972) and Petzold (1971), comment on the thorough nature of the data
collection, so that it can be assumed that the samples the analysis is based on are as
complete as can be expected.
Table 3.3. Metaphorical Expressions for Men and Women in German
Terms for women denoting:
1. Sex-marked animal, e.g. Gemse 'nanny-goat'
2. Generic animal term, e.g. Wespe 'wasp'
3. Diminutives, e.g. Tiiubchen 'little dove'
4. Inanimates and abstracts, e.g. Scheibe 'disc'
5. Human, grammatical gender in conflict with
natural gender, e.g. Weib 'woman'
Total
Terms for men denoting:
1. Sex-marked animal, e.g. Hengst 'stallion'
2. Generic animal term, e.g. Bar 'bear'
3. Diminutives, e.g. Wurstchen 'little sausage'
4. Inanimates and abstracts, e.g. Kleiderschrank
'cupboard'
S. Human, grammatical gender in conflict with
natural gender, e.g. Memme 'coward'
Total
Grammatical gender
Masculine Feminine Neuter
o
12
62
12
86
6
11
61
78
12
28
198
238
o
o
26
2
28
10
37
38
1
86
o
3
20
23
Note. Dictionaries (predominantly Bornemann 1971) were analyzed for the number of
different terms which could be used to describe men or women metaphorically. These
terms were categorized according to their semantic properties and their gender to d e m ~
onstrate the relationship between feminine terms and gender for women and between
masculine terms and gender for men.
As can be seen from Table 3.3, there are far more terms for women than
for men. This was found also by Kleinke (1974) for English speakers, so that it
would appear to be a feature at least of West European society that meta-
phorical expressions are used for women more commonly than for men. A far
greater number of diminutive expressions are used for women than for men,
this number in both cases increasing the instance of neuter gender terms. The
number of terms which denote humans and are in conflict with the natural
gender is small in both cases; the number is greater for women than for men
through the use of terms ending in the morpheme -er. Despite the inclusion of
these categories, which go against the hypothesis that the natural and
grammatical gender of such expressions will coincide, a significantly high pro-
portion of terms were of feminine gender where they denoted women and of
masculine gender where they denoted men. Comparing the distribution of the
metaphorical expressions with the expected distribution of nouns across the
grammatical categories using a chi-Square test, the results were significant in
each case (men, X
2
= 6.09, p<0.05; women, X2 = 43, p<O.OOI, df= 2).
These results demonstrate the close relationship that exists between the
natural gender rule and the grammatical forms. The strong hypothesis would
be that nouns of feminine or masculine gender are perceived in terms of
natural gender. The weaker hypothesis is that, when it is a question of select-
ing metaphorical expressions, the tendency exists to group nouns of the same
grammatical gender together. Whichever hypothesis is correct, in terms of the
linguistic environment for the child, this behaviour on the part of adult
speakers would increase the salience of the natural gender rule and should
facilitate the acquisition of the rule by the child.
Frequency of English Pronoun Forms and a Stndy of the Use of Generic
'he' in English Children's Literature
As has already been discussed, the frequency of forms in input is important in
considering acquisition, since it could be influential in the perception and
learning of a distinction. From a study of pronoun forms in written and
spoken texts of English, Thavenius (1983) shows that it is the most common
third person pronoun in anaphoric use; altogether, it is twice as frequent as
he. The pronoun he is much more frequent than she, which has a low
frequency, especially in spontaneous conversation (1983, p. 101). Female
speakers use she more often than male speakers, but there is no difference
between the sexes in their use of he.
If a close relationship is assumed between frequency and acquisition, then
these statistics imply that it will be learned before the other personal
pronouns, and of these, he will be learned before she. Since the generic use of
he accounted for less than 1 "70 of the uses of he, the sex-related use would ap-
pear to be clearest. However, since language addressed to children can differ
from adult-to-adult language, the use of he in adults' speech in this context
was investigated using children's literature as the source material.
It was mentioned in the discussion of the common gender rule (pp.
20 - 23) that in English both the pronoun it and he can be used to refer to
animals where no sex specification has been made, that is, as the common
gender form. It has been observed in adults' speech to young children that
their use of he in this common gender function is high in proportion to their
use of it. This also extends to the personifying use of he for inanimate objects
(see pp. 23 - 26). The occurrence of the generic he in input to children was
therefore investigated as a possible factor influencing their acquisition.
For this investigation, it was decided to analyze the form of the pronoun
chosen in English children's animal reference books used in primary schools.
Miller and Swift (1972) have already established that generic he is common in
Table 3.4. Pronoun Use in Children's Reference Books
Age group of children
5-6
7-8
9-10
Total
No. of books
24
12
14
50
Pronoun used
He She It
60 7 56
24 0 45
6 0 73
90 7 174
Note. A total of 50 English children's reference books dealing with animals were ana-
lyzed for their use of pronouns in a generic sense. The books were categorized accord-
ing to the age group they were aimed at. For each book, the animals were listed with the
pronoun used; this use was totalled for all the books.
this context. It was decided to examine the usage for variation according to
age. Teachers in three primary schools (one in Southern, two in Northern
England) were asked to select from the reference books available in their
school library those books which were used for their age group of children
(5 -10 years).
The books were then grouped into those used for 5- to 6-year-olds, 7- to 8-
year-olds and 9- to 10-year-olds. For each book, a list was made of the differ-
ent animals referred to with a pronoun and the form of the pronoun used.
Sex-specific references such as to a mother bear or a stallion were excluded.
The results of the analysis are set out in Table 3.4. By inspection, it can be
seen that for 5- and 6-year-olds, the use of generic he is as common in this con-
text as it. This use steadily decreases until, for the 9- to 10-year-olds, the fre-
quency is minimal. It could be objected that the use is not determined by the
age group the book is directed at but by the animals referred to; that is, the
reference books for the older children were about different animals, hence the
different usage. An examination of the types of animals referred to showed
that this was not the case. Domestic animals, for example, featured as often in
the books for younger as for older children. This point will be illustrated
taking the references to cats. In the books for the youngest children, there
were 11 pronominal references to cats, seven of which were made with the
pronoun he, two with she and two with it. In the books for the oldest children,
there were 21 references to cats, 20 of which were made with the pronoun it
and only one with the pronoun he.
It can be concluded that there is a clear stylistic variance in the pronoun
used to express common gender in animals according to the age of the child
addressed. The use of the pronoun he appears to be perceived as a token of a
lively style and hence more appropriate for younger children. This stylistic
variation obviously affects the input for younger children who thus receive a
The Psychological Status of Unmarked Terms 57
higher frequency of the he pronoun than the older children. This can affect
acquisition of these pronouns, possibly leading to delay in the acquisition of it
in its common gender function and a confusion as to whether he is a generic or
sex-marked pronoun. This will be examined in the light of the acquisition
data.
The Psychological Status of Unmarked Terms
The third person singular masculine pronoun is used in this Bulletin only for
grammatical and semantic convenience; it does not indicate a preference for
either of the sexes.
Bulletin of the State University of New York at Binghamton
(quoted in the New Yorker, June 1983)
"Grammar, the ultimate arena of sexist brainwashing, conceals the very
existence of women - except in special situations."
Susan Sontag, "The Third World of Women" (1973)
The feminist movement has concerned itself to a considerable degree with
the reflection of women's role in language. 21 In particular, it has challenged
the claim from linguists that lexical items having a sex feature can be un-
marked. This challenge has been based on the psychological investigation of
such lexical items, and it is primarily these results which will be discussed here.
As was discussed in an earlier section (pp. 9 -11), many languages, in-
cluding English and German (see pp. 20 - 23), contain lexical items which can
designate both the male of a sex-marked pair and the generic. For example,
doctor and the German equivalent Arzt can refer to a male member of the
medical profession or to any member of the medical profession regardless of
sex. The pronoun he and er are unmarked in both languages in the same way.
This dominating frequency of masculine forms, it has been claimed since the
beginnings of the feminist movement (see Lakoff, 1973), is a reflection of
male dominance in society and affects the perception of the speakers. 22
The dominating frequency of masculine forms, even where female equiv-
alents exist in the language, has been shown in many languages (German:
Pusch, 1980a; Italian: Tamburello, 1980; French: Yaguello, 1978; Polish:
Nalibow, 1973; Spanish: Nash, 1982; Hindi: Valentine, 1983; English:
Lakoff, 1975; and Tr6mel-Pltitz, 1980). The effect of this dominance, howev-
er, has been tested only in relatively few studies, but the results seem clear
21 See Froitzheim (1981) for a bibliography of work on language and gender. The
amount of published material in this area has increased rapidly in the last decade;
good reviews are to be found in Key (1975), Orasanu, Slater & Loeb-Adler (1979),
McConneil-Ginet (1979, 1980, 1983), Spender (1980) and Vetterling-Braggin (1981).
22 Linguists are not exempt from this bias either (Skutnabb-Kangas & Heinamaki,
1979).
enough. Schneider and Hacker (1973) investigated subjects' choice of pictures
as illustrations for a text in which the generic term man was used. There was a
clear preference for pictures of male humans by both men and women, which
the authors interpret as showing a dominance of the male concept influenced
through the form of the generic term. Nilsen (1973; quoted in Spender, 1980,
p. 152) reports that young children interpret the generic term man only as
referring to male people. Moulton, Robinson and Elias (1978) obtained
similar resnlts in an investigation of the generic nse of the pronouns. Even in a
gender-neutral context, subjects interpreted the reference as being to a male.
The snbjects' sex also inflnenced selection, however, in that female subjects
were more likely to choose a female referent than the male subjects. Martyna
(1980) also studied the pronouns, but in a production task. The subjects were
asked to produce pronouns in a cloze test related to pictures. The subjects
chose the masculine pronoun predominantly, although again female subjects
chose he less often than the male subjects. It was also found that the subjects
avoided matching generic he to a picture of a woman.
These results showed clearly that the generic terms man and he, his etc.
are not unbiased in their reference. There is a clear preference to identify them
as referring to a male human. It could be argued that the results of such
studies are to be attributed to an interpretation strategy which is implemented
at the point of having to make a choice about the sex of the referent, that is,
when there is a possibility of interpreting a term in its more general or more
specific sense, the more specific sense should be chosen, in this context male
sex. It is not possible to disprove such an interpretation of these results. In so
far as it is only possible to make inferences about meaning from behaviour,
then the conflation of the generic and the specific in this instance influences
behaviour at least in this context. Other evidence for such a bias comes from
the diffculty English speakers have in solving the famous 'doctor puzzle', 23
where the choice is not imposed by experimental conditions, but by their own
bias in meaning.
In the context of acquisition, it could well be expected that children inter-
pret the use of the generic terms as being direct references to male beings and
that this decreases to a greater or lesser degree only with more language expe-
rience.
If it can be assumed that these results can be extended to German (see
Hellinger, 1980; Pusch, 1980b), this would imply that in both languages the
masculine and feminine gender forms are most strongly associated with their
sex-marking function. The generic linguistic function of the masculine forms
23 The doctor puzzle: A father and son are out driving in their car when they have a
bad accident; the father is killed, and the son is rushed to hospital.He is about to be
operated on when the doctor refuses, saying "That is my son". Explain the situa-
tion. Solution: The doctor is the patient's mother.
Summary and Conclusions 59
does not correlate with a lack of psychological bias. 24 The consequence of
these findings for acquisition is that, since apparently true common gender
terms with no psychological bias do not exist, the natural gender rule will be
more prominent in input and therefore more quickly learned.
Summary and Conclusions
The evidence from loan words and experimentation with adult speakers of
German has shown that a considerable number of the morphological and
phonetic rules set up in linguistic description are used to assign gender to a
noun which is new to the speaker. From the evidence derived from loan
words, however, speakers do not orient themselves solely according to struc-
tural properties of the word, but also according to the meaning. It is not clear
how exactly these two aspects interact. It is to be expected, however, that
those rules which have been shown to be psychologically real for adult
speakers will be learned in acquisition.
The evidence from German speakers' behaviour with the semantic rules
shows that they tend to switch to using pronouns based on natural gender as
soon as this is structurally possible. In an empirical study of the metaphorical
terms used for men and women, it has been shown that adult speakers make a
close connection between male and female terms and the respective gramma-
tical genders in their choice of metaphors. This new finding indicates that the
natural gender rule has greater salience for German adults than would be
expected from a consideration of the scope of the rule in the lexicon. It should
therefore be learned by children more quickly than its scope would predict.
A empirical study of the use of generic he to refer to animals in English
children's books revealed a variation in the amount he was used according to
the age of the child the text was directed at. In the books for younger children
he was used far more frequently than in the books for older children; in the
latter, he was replaced by it. This finding ties in with the observation for
spoken English that he is used frequently in speech to younger children. It is
hypothesized that this double function of he could influence the acquisition of
it in the common gender function and confuse the acquisition of he in the sex-
marked function.
Through the psychological testing of generic terms, which are identical to
masculine gender forms, a clear bias has been shown to exist in speakers in
24 The consequence of these findings has been the development of guidelines for the
avoidance of sexist language. In English, these were first developed by the American
Psychological Association in 1975, including the use of they as the generic pronoun
(Mackay, 1980; Pateman, 1982), and in German, by Guentherodt, Hellinger, Pusch
& TrOmel-Platz (1980). A commission has even been set up for the investigation of
these problems by UNESCO (Avery, 1984).
that they identify male referents in association with such terms rather than fe-
male referents. The masculine forms appear to be most strongly associated
with the sex-marking function, which in turn indicates that the natural gender
rule has considerable salience for adult speakers. It is suggested that this
salience may be even greater for children in the period of acquisition and facil-
itate their acquisition of the rule.
CHAPTER 4
The Acquisition of Gender in Children
Introduction
A comparison of the acquisition of gender in German and English is of funda-
mental theoretical interest, since these two languages are examples of two
quite different gender systems. As was discussed in detail above, the systems
are distinct in the extent to which they are present in the language and as to the
kind of rules which exist for assigning gender.
Gender in both languages is also a subsystem which interacts with other
systems, such as congruence in German or case in both languages. Clearly, a
complete description of the acquisition of such a subsystem cannot be provid-
ed unless the acquisition of the other interacting systems is also described.
This would fall way beyond the scope of the present study which focusses on
providing a description of the acquisition of gender. Hopefully, the challenge
of providing an integrated picture of the acquisition of gender with other
systems can be taken up in future research.
The comparison of the gender systems of English and German made in
the preceding chapters has shown the considerable differences existing
between the gender systems of the two languages. To summarize: German has
an extensive system of gender in that articles, adjectives and pronouns are af-
fected in their form by the gender of the noun. In English, only third person
singular pronouns are affected. Gender is determined basically according to
two semantic rules. In German, the natural gender rule is one of several
semantic rules which interact with a complex of formal, morphological and
phonetic rules. As has been seen, these rules have varying status in terms of
the size of the correlation, the proportion of the lexicon they apply to etc.
The investigation of adult speakers' behaviour has shown that the formal
rules of gender assignment in German are used by speakers with loan words
and invented words in an experimental context. Semantic rules also affect
speakers' behaviour; in particular, the natural gender rule appears to have
considerable salience for the German speakers.
The information from linguistic description and linguistic behaviour of
adults provides the background for making predictions about children's be-
haviour in their acquisition of this area. This chapter will present the data
which has been obtained from English and German children in observational
62 The Acquisition of Gender in Children
and experimental studies. In the first section, the acquisition of formal gender
rules in German will be investigated. In the following sections, the acquisition,
in both English and German, of the animacy and natural gender rules will be
reported. Lastly, the implications for explanatory theories in child language
acquisition will be discussed in the light of the data presented.
The Acquisition of Formal Rules in German
Hypotheses
Most previous research on the acquisition of gender has concentrated either
on the role of semantic rules or on the interrelationship of formal and
semantic rules in acquisition. Maratsos and Chalkley (1980) argue against the
primacy of semantic rules. They maintain that children have the ability to
perceive distributional patterns quickly and do not have to rely on semantics.
They define gender in the same perspective, as "not a characteristic of the
noun, but a characteristic of how it fits into related semantic-distributional
patterns" (1980, p. 137). Maratsos and Chalkley base their arguments on data
from several languages, including German, which they quite wrongly assume
to be a language with arbitrary gender assignment. Maratsos (1979) is in fact
quite adamant in this claim about German:
The classification is arbitrary. No underlying rationale can be guessed at. The
presence of such systems in a human cognitive system constitutes by itself ex-
cellent testimony to the occasional nonsensibleness of the species. Not only
was this system devised by humans but generation after generation of chil-
dren peaceably relearn it (p. 235).
Nevertheless, Maratsos and Chalkley's claims can be used as the basis for
the hypothesis that German children will quickly learn to generalize the gender
patterns once they have been established for one set of gender-marked forms.
So, for example, it could be hypothesized that once German children have
learned the definite article in conjunction with a noun that they can induce the
other related forms such as indefinite article, relative pronoun etc.
In terms of linguistic description, the articles are less attenuated in their
functions than the personal pronouns (see pp. 13 -15). Gender marking
occurs with all these forms in German, but only with the personal pronouns in
English. It can therefore be hypothesized that gender marking in association
with articles will be acquired by German children before gender marking in as-
sociation with pronouns and therefore before English children acquire gender
marking at all.
Part of the linguistic description given earlier (pp. 32 - 34) for the phonet-
ic rules of gender assignment in German was the scope of the rule and the pro-
portion of words governed by the rule. It can be hypothesized that the greater
The Acquisition of Formal Rules in German 63
the scope of the rule and the fewer the number of exceptions, the more quickly
the rule will be learned by the child. This presumes that the child is able to
keep track of frequencies and register similarities and dissimilarities, an ability
which is a prerequisite for every kind of pattern learning (Slobin, 1986a, p. 8).
These hypotheses will be examined in the light of the longitudinal acquisi-
tion data and experimental results presented in the following sections.
Observational Acqnisition Data
The bulk of the data for early spontaneous use of gender marking is taken
from recordings made with three children aged 1;8 - 2;6: Gisela, Hanna and
Georg. 25 These data will be compared with the information from diary studies
(Preyer, 1882; Scupin & Scupin, 1907, 1910; Stern & Stern 1909) and from the
published data of Clahsen (1982b).
In the early speech of German children, recognizing the use of a gender-
marked form can be problematic. As was discussed earlier, the gender para-
digms are extensive and complex; the forms of articles, adjective endings and
pronouns interact with case, number, preceding form etc. The child has to
learn that these varying forms can be grouped in terms of gender paradigms.
Thus, at some point, a child may know that the forms grojJer and Ball 'big
ball' belong together but not der and Ball. Even if he knows these two com-
binations, he may not necessarily relate the two; that is, he might not know
that they are part of the same paradigm based on the classification of Ball.
When the wrong from is produced, one cannot talk simply of an incorrect
gender assignment until the child shows evidence of being consistent with the
forms in a gender paradigm. Despite this paradox, it must be recognized that,
until that point, the child is in the process of learning the paradigm. The early
data therefore reflect as much the learning of the paradigms as the acquisition
of gender assignment rules.
Forms which can carry gender marking appear in general around the age
of 2 years. The first to be produced are adjectives and articles. The earliest
forms of the articles are reduced and appear to be an amalgam with the noun.
This reduced form is also common in fast speech in adults and in some
dialects, and so children may be influenced here by input. The definite article
is produced as [d, 1; this was found in Georg at 1; 10, Gisela at 2;2 and Hanna
at 2;2. Preyer (1882, p. 330) reports this form in his child at 2;6; Stern and
Stern record it in both their son and daughter at age 1; 1 0 and 1;2 respectively
(Stern & Stern, 1928, pp. 44, 86). The indefinite article is commonly reduced
25 I am extremely grateful to Barbara Ornellas for making the data from Georg
available to me. From these tape recordings and those of Hanna and Gisela, all
utterances have been phonetically transcribed, and this transcription will be referred
to whereever relevant. This information is, however, rarely available from the other
sources of data used.
to [(o)n] or [0] by Georg, Gisela and Hanna. Stern and Stern also report the
use of this from on a large scale; in addition, Hilde (1 ;10) and Giinther (2;4)
inserted it in inappropriate contexts, such as before adverbs, so that for them
its status as a determiner is unclear. This use was not found in the other
children. Gender marking is not evident in these reduced forms: They are used
equally with nouns of all three genders. Gender can only be investigated when
the full forms are produced by the child.
Gender cannot be separated from case. An error in case may not neces-
sarily imply an error in gender, but it is often impossible to distinguish one
from the other. Since the three gender paradigms are distinct in the nomina-
tive case of the definite article (see above), the use of the nominative definite
article provides the clearest evidence as to the correct selection of gender.
Nominative case is frequently used instead of the accusative case in the
masculine paradigm; when dative case starts to appear, there appears to be no
difficulty in choosing the form from the correct gender paradigm (Mills,
1986). If the definite article der is used instead of den, it is clear that the error
lies with case. With the indefinite article, this is not so clear, since ein might
also indicate the choice of neuter gender. Bearing these difficulties of analysis
in mind, the early acquisition of the gender-marked forms in German will be
documented in the following sections.
Indefinite Article
Indefinite articles are used more frequently than the definite articles when
they first appear in child speech, but the difference rapidly disappears. In
Gisela, the use of the articles was sporadic until 2;4. Hanna had only infre-
quent use of articles until 2;2; the use of the indefinite articles was initially
greater, but by 2;6 there was no clear difference in the frequency of the two
article forms. Georg used articles rarely until 1;11; the indefinite article and
diese as a demonstrative became more frequent, but by 2;2 there was no clear
difference between these and the definite articles. Clahsen's children, Mathias
and Daniel, frequently omitted articles until 2;9; from then on there was a
rapid increase in use.
The most common early form of the indefinite article observed is eine
with the related forms meine 'my' and diese 'this'. There are many inap-
propriate uses of these forms with nouns of masculine or neuter gender. Park
(1974, 1981) also reports this early use of the feminine forms. Scupin and
Scupin note *eine Strumpf(masc.) 'a sock' at age 2;0. Stern and Stern record
*meine Appe/e (masc./Neut.) 'my apple' at age 1;10, and meine referring to
Mtintelchen (neut.) 'little coat' at 2;6. There is no clear evidence that these
nouns have been wrongly classified in terms of the whole gender paradigm,
since the use of the definite article is rare, and, when used, often correct. The
difficulty seems to be limited to the indefinite article.
._-----------------
When the use of the indefinite article became more frequent, it was pos-
sible to observe a fluctuation in use between ein and eine in combination with
the same noun. Thus, at 2;4, Gisela produced in adjoining utterances ein Pud-
ding 'a pudding' and *eine Pudding; Georg (2;3) commented about a picture
book da *ein Schnecke, noch eine Schnecke 'there a snail, another snail'.
From the latter example, it might be argued that this should be seen as a self-
correction, but it is by no means the case that the incorrect form is always pro-
duced first. It is possible that this does not represent a development in the
child from so-called completely 'incorrect' use to alternating use, but rather
that, because of the amount of data available, this fluctuation was not ob-
servable earlier in acquisition.
The indefinite article seems to cause more problems than the definite
article. When the frequency of use of both articles is approximately equal,
Gisela, Hanna and Georg all make more 'errors' with the indefinite article,
approximately three times as many as with the definite article. This may be
because of the inclarity in input resulting from the reduced forms and the
multiplicity of form and function (see pp. 13 -15). The definite article is, at
least in the nominative and accusative cases, clear as to gender marking, where-
as the indefinite article barely distinguishes masculine and neuter genders.
Another possible influence on the incorrect use of the indefinite article
may be the high frequency of the ending -e in the article and adjective para-
digms (see Tables 2.2, 2.4, Chapter 2), leading to an overgeneralization of the
-e ending on all prenominal units. Evidence in support of this argument comes
from the adjective forms which are produced at this stage in acquisition
(Mills, 1986). Adjectives are used in attributive position before articles appear
in the noun phrase, and when articles first appear, they are rarely placed
before an adjective. A common finding is that the ending -e is overgeneralized
in this position (Miller, 1976; Park, 1974, 1981; Scupin & Scupin, 1907, Stern
& Stern, 1928). Data from Gisela, Hanna and Georg support this: For
example, Georg produced at 2;2 *gute Auto (neut.) 'good car'. The ending -e
might be perceived by the child as a common ending appropriate for forms
occurring prenominally, with no relation to a categorization of the noun
according to gender.
Evidence taken from slightly older children indicates that the indefinite
article is produced correctly in the majority of cases around age 3. The
transcripts of experimental situations, 26 in which children (45 boys, 40 girls)
aged 3;2 - 6;3 were asked to describe a set of familiar items, provided in-
formation about the spontaneous use of the indefinite article. The children
produced the article in two distinct contexts, so that two examples of the
26 These transcripts come from the experiments on reference and deixis conducted by
Thomas Pechmann and Werner Deutsch, Max Planck Institutfilr Psycholinguistik.
Nijmegen, The Netherlands (Pechmann & Deutsch, 1982). I am extremely grateful
to the authors for making them available to me so that this.analysis could be carried
out.
Table 4.1. Production of indefinite articles in German children
Gender of noun Noun
Neuter Auto
Buch
Portemonnaie
Total
Masculine Ball
Kamm
LOffel
SchlUssel
Stift
Total
Feminine Kanne
Kerze
Schaufel
Schere
SchOppe
Uhr
Total
Gender of article used
Masculine/
Neuter
28
4
16
48
31
67
22
68
5
193
1
5
Feminine
4
1
3
1
9
10
6
14
52
3
69
6 154
Note. A group of 55 German children (33 boys. 22 girls; aged 3; 2 - 6; 3) produced the
indefinite article in making reference to one of several objects in an experimental
situation in which referential ability was under examination.
26
These spontaneous
productions for the limited set of nouns are evaluated here for the correctness of gender
in the article.
child's use are available for comparison and analysis. A set of five or six items
was used with each child, hence the varying number of productions for each
noun.
Table 4.1 shows that, with this set of items, the number of incorrect uses
is very small. There was no difference in the production of girls and boys. The
majority of these errors were also mixed; that is, the same child produced both
a correct and an incorrect form. The errors were not principally among the
younger children, but distributed across the age range. This would indicate
that the child does not consistently assign the noun to the wrong gender, but
rather is unsure of or inattentive to the form to be used. Data from the same
children prodncing the same nouns with the definite article (see Table 4.3)
show that there is rarely a consistent gender problem, which supports this con-
clnsion.
Definite Article
As mentioned above, the definite article appears later than the indefinite
article. When it does appear, however, it is most frequently correct with
regard to gender. No mistakes are to be found in Preyer's material, but. he
does not explicitly comment on gender at alL Examples of the definite article
in all three genders, used correctly, appear by age 2;9. Stern and Stern claim
the correct distinction between masculine forms and feminine forms by age
2;6 in Hilde, but do not report whether the wrong article was used with neuter
nouns or whether the article was omitted. The Scupins report that their son
made frequent errors when he first started to produce articles, but no further
information is given about what these errors were or in which type of article.
In the majority of utterances recorded in the diary, the use of the definite
article is correct.
The errors which do occur with the definite article suggest an overgeneral-
ization of the form die, at least in younger children. This could be interpreted
as a plural refereuce, but only those cases are considered where the child
referred to a singular object. The Scupins' data include three errors in the
period between 2;3 and 2;8: 'die Hochstein (masc.) 'the summit', *die Mann
(masc.) 'the man', 'die Truthahn (masc.) 'the turkey'. Only oue other mistake
is noted: *das Kopj (masc.) 'the head', in which the neuter article is used
incorrectly with a masculine noun. Stern and Stern report five gender errors
up to the age 2;8, all of which indicate an overgeneralization of die. In spon-
taneous data from Down's syndrome children (Schaner-Walles, personal
communication, 1983), die is also the overgeneralized form, and this con-
tinues over a long period.
In the speech of Gisela, Hanna and Georg, die was used most often where
errors did occur, but errors were surprisingly rare. Nine errors were found al-
together, compared with 73 correct uses. Only one of these involved the incor-
rect use of the neuter form: 'das Schuh (masc.) 'the shoe'. The other eight
show incorrect use of die with six masculine nouns Bagger 'digger', Hund
'dog', Opa 'Grandpa', Schuh 'shoe', Traktor 'tractor' and Zug 'train' and
with two neuter nouns Kind 'child' and Segelboot 'sailing boat'.
The small number of errors must be seen in relation to the fact that the
definite article started to be used consistently only towards the end of the ob-
servation period. The fact that the definite article is used less frequently in-
itially can be iuterpreted as an avoidance of a form which presents difficulty.
The indefinite article did not lead to the use of this avoidance strategy,
possibly because the forms were perceived as being in free variation or related
to the high frequency of -e endings before the noun. As discussed above, the
definite article, in the nominative and accusative cases at least, makes a
categorization of nouns clear. Where the children are aware of the differentia-
tion but unsure of the form to choose, they possibly avoid it. When they
become more confident of selecting the correct form, they produce it.
Schueuwly (1978) discusses this behaviour in an experimental context in which
Table 4.2. Production and omission of the definite article by German children
Child Form produced Gender of noun
Neuter Masculine Feminine
Hanna article 1 4 18
0 5 20 11
Gisela article 4 2 15
0 4 11 9
Georg article 0 3 20
0 2 7 8
Total article 5 9 53
0 11 38 28
Note. The number of correct productions of the definite article by three children aged
2; 2 - 2; 6 was compared with the number of omissions of the definite article from an
analysis of the recordings of samples of their spontaneous utterances (0. omission).
Swiss German children between 3;5 and 5;10 were asked to assign gender to
nonsense words. He found a high proportion of omission of the article, par-
ticularly in the younger children (65"70 of all responses). He concludes that,
where the children are unsure of the form to be used, they will omit it.
To check this claim, an analysis was made based on the data collected
from Georg, Gisela and Hanna of the instances in which the correct article
was produced and in which it was omitted. The reduced form of the article
was eliminated, since it is not distinct for gender. It was found that all three
children produced far more feminine nouns with the definite article than
nouns of the other two genders (see Table 4.2). Articles for the nouns of
masculine and neuter gender were more frequently omitted than for those of
feminine gender, although the generally smaller proportion of neuter nouns in
the language as a whole and in the vocabulary of children must be considered.
The figures here are not large, but they suggest that children are more confi-
dent with the gender of feminine nouns, at least with respect to the form of the
definite article required, so that they produce this form more frequently and
omit the forms they are less sure of. This will discussed further below.
An explanation for the greater frequency of errors in which die is inap-
propriately used as the article could be the greater frequency of this form
across all paradigms (see pp. 13 -15). This form is used in the nominative and
accusative cases as the plural for all three genders, so that it is a frequent form
in use as well as in distribution acroSS the paradigms. Until plural marking is
recognized by the child, the occurrence of the same noun with two different
articles in the nominative case, particularly where the noun has no explicit
plural marking, as in der L6ffel (masc.) 'the spoon' and die L6ffel 'the
spoons', may lead to confusion as to the gender classification of the noun in
question. This relationship between gender marking and plural morphology
will be discussed below in more detail.
The above findings can be explained in terms of a production strategy.
Such a strategy has been formulated by Slobin (1986b):
OP (PRODUCTION): UNINTERPRETED FORMS. If a speech element is
frequent, and perceptually salient, but has no obvious semantic or pragmatic
function, lise it in its salient form and position until you discover its function;
otherwise do not use it.
It would seem extremely difficult to predict the use of such a strategy in
advance, however, since it relies on a definition of what is perceptually salient
to the child etc.
The production of the definite article was also examined in older children
from the data abstracted from the experimental situations described earlier
(see pp. 65 - 66), in which older children (3;2 - 6;3) made reference to a specif-
ic set of objects. The children were asked to specify individual objects from a
set of four known objects, a situation requiring the definite article. This refer-
ence was made twice. The objects were used in varying degrees for the task,
hence the different number of responses for each noun. The productions were
classified according to the gender of the article produced. The situation often
required accusative case; the instances in which a child produced the nomina-
tive der instead of den were categorized as correct use of masculine gender.
As can be seen from Table 4.3, there are relatively few incorrect produc-
tions of the article, altogether 5% of the total. None of the five 6-year-olds
made an error; otherwise, the errors were distributed across the age range.
There is significant variation in the number of errors made according to the
gender of the noun (%2= 15.81; df= 6; p<O.OI). Fewer errors were made
with feminine gender nouns, as was observed for Georg, Gisela and Hanna.
This finding also fits with the observation that younger children produce the
article more frequently with feminine gender nouns.
In general, it is rare for feminine gender, article or noun, to be paired with
neuter gender, article or noun. When an error is made with a feminine noun, a
masculine article is commonly used. When an error is made with a neuter
noun, a masculine article is used. For masculine nouns, there is a slightly
greater use of the feminine than of the neuter article. These observations of
children's speech fit the findings relating to words of varying gender reported
on earlier (p. 35) that, in adult speech, feminine and neuter are rarely found as
alternative genders for the same noun.
The evidence from the self-corrections produced in these contexts sup-
ports the above finding that feminine and neuter gender are rarely confused
with one another. In 11 cases, the child first produced the incorrect form die
(ten of these with masculine gender nouns) before changing to the correct
form of the article; in three cases, der was produced first with a feminine
gender noun, and in two instances, das was produced with a masculine noun.
Table 4.3. The production of definite articles in German children
Gender of noun
Neuter
Masculine
Feminine
Noun
Auto
Buch
Portemonnaie
Total
Ball
Kamm
Wffel
Schltissel
Stift
Total
Kanne
Kerze
Schaufel
Schere
Schuppe
Uhr
Total
Gender of article used
Neuter
42
16
12
70
2
4
7
Masculine
2
4
2
8
57
113
49
47
31
297
1
1
1
2
1
6
Feminine
1
1
8
2
1
1
13
65
34
28
112
35
42
316
Total
45
20
14
79
60
125
51
49
32
317
66
35
29
114
36
42
322
Note. A group of 55 German children (33 boys, 22 girls; aged 3;2-6;3) produced the
definite article in making reference to one of several objects in an experimental
situation in which referential ability was under examination.
26
These spontaneous
productions for the elimited set of nouns are evaluated there for the correctness of
gender in the article.
The finding that the children make associations and distinctions between
genders which are similar to the adnlt pattern would suggest that some analy-
sis of the phonetic structure is taking place and that this structure is nsed at
least to determine which form of the definite article is appropriate. If the
words in Table 4.3 are considered in terms of their phonetic shape, five of the
six feminine gender nouns are phonetically marked as feminine: Four have an
-e ending, one has the ending -ur. 27 The noun Schaufe! (fem.), which could be
made masculine or neuter according to a weak disassociation of -e! with
feminine gender 28 does not seem to attract more errors, however. Stift (masc.)
should be feminine according to rule 3 in Table 2.7, but a higher number of er-
27 The word Uhf 'clock' is a monosyllable, and monosyllabacity is associated with
masculine and neuter, not with feminine. The high performance level here might
also have to do with the notion of core system (see pp. 29 - 30).
28 Of 643 words ending in -e/ (Mater, 1967), 196 have masculine gender, 210 neuter
and 137 feminine.
rors is not produced in connection with this word. It is possible that this set of
words belongs to the 'core' vocabulary of the children, so that the form of the
definite article has been learned by rote in association with these nouns rather
than by a phonetic rule. The higher number of correct articles used with the
feminine nouns, the majority of which are phonetically marked as feminine,
would suggest, however, that these rules, particularly the rule associating -e
with feminine, are in the process of being acquired.
Vocabulary Analysis
When considering the phonetic form of the nouns with which correct gender is
produced at this age or the form of those nouns with which an error is made,
the small number of instances of each phonetic rule type makes it difficult to
draw any firm conclusions. As supporting evidence, an analysis can be made
of early vocabnlary to see what forms are present and in what frequency.
From this, the rules for which it would be possible for the child to perceive a
regularity can be established. An analysis of the Scupins' child's vocabulary
up to the age of 3 years gives a picture of the distribution of the endings 29 oc-
curring with some regularity in the 574 nouns (see Table 4.4).
The feminine ending -e is strongly represented. The diminutives are also
numerous. Other rules are more weakly evident. The -e/ ending shows a
stronger association with masculine gender here than it does in the whole
vocabulary, 28 making it likely that this 'incorrect' association will be learned.
Table 4.4. The frequency of phonetic forms in child vocabulary
Phonetic form Associated gender No. of nouns No. of exceptions
-e feminine 80 6
-er masculine 25 8
-en masculine 16 0
-el masculine 20 5
-el (if diminutive) neuter 24 0
-Ie neuter 9 0
-chen neuter 8 0
,C- (in monosyllables) masculine 14 0
Note. Scupin and Scupin (1907) recorded each new item produced by their son. From
this vocabulary list up to the age of 2; 11, an analysis was made of those nouns having
certain phorietic forms in order to demonstrate the frequency of such forms related to
the possibility of learning their association with gender.
29 Schneuwly (1978) conducted a similar analysis of the Scupins' data. Since we arrive
at slightly different figures, I quote only mine here, although the differences do not
affect the conclusions to be drawn.
72
The rule for monosyllables beginning with sC- is weakly evident; it is probably
also affected in its status by the child's own pronunciations of these words,
since he frequently omits the initial [S], thus making the rule less clear in his
own production. The findings raise two important questions in considering
regularities for the child, that is, whether phonetic regularities can be learned
by the child when they are not within his productive capacity aud, secondly,
whether regularities in the child's vocabulary can lead to the learning of 'false'
rules. These aspects should be borne in mind in future research.
The vocabulary of the Scupins' child showed a clear frequency of the -e
ending and a clear association of this ending with feminine gender. This find-
ing is supported by the results of a similar analysis of the vocabulary recorded
from Gisela, Hanna, and Georg. For Gisela, the -e ending was found on 14
words of the recorded vocabulary of 86 nouns; for Hanna, there were 18 cases
in 73 nouns and for Gerog, ten out of 65. From this evidence, is would seem to
be the rule most likely to be learned first. This is confirmed when the use of
the definite article is considered, since all cases of nouns with an -e ending
were used with the correct gender. Some errors suggest that particular
phonetic rules are not present. For example, one child produced Odie Bagger,
although the ending -er is associated with masculine gender. One child pro-
duced die Hund, although the ending -Cn.,alC is associated with masculine
gender, but since these endings are not well represented in the child's
vocabulary, it would seem likely that the association with gender is learned
later.
Gender with Suffixes and Compounds
As was discussed in an earlier section (pp. 30-31) German children have to
learn certain categorial rules of gender assignment in connection with deriva-
tional morphology and noun compounds, for example, the Last-Member
Principle. In order for children to be able to learn such rules, they must
segment the words into the relevant morphemes. Otherwise, they would be
treat the noun as a whole and produce the gender-related forms on the basis of
phonetic rules, semantic rules or rote learning. It would be possible, for
example, to assign feminine gender to Butterschnitte "slice of bread butter"
on the basis of the [-, 1 ending without the word having been analyzed into
Butter 'butter' + Schnitte (fern.) 'slice'.
It is not possible to give any clear answer to the question of when German
children begin to learn such categorial rules. From the spontaneous utterances
of Gisela, Hanna, and Georg, the complex words (compounds and nouns +
derivational suffixes) did not seem to be associated with more errors than the
simplex words, but this must be qualified by stating that the number of com-
plex words up to age 2;6 was not large in our sample.
An analysis of the vocabulary list compiled by Scupin and Scupin up to
age 2;11 shows that the child's lexicon develops to include a far greater num-
ber of complex words between the ages of 2;0 and 2;11. As mentioned above,
Scupin and Scupin do not list articles or gender errors, so that no error
analysis can be made, but it is possible to examine whether the necessary
conditions for acquisition are present by examining the child's lexicon.
Up to age 2;0, Bubi's lexicon included 179 nouns altogether, of which 21
were complex (120J0). From 2;0 to 2;11, his lexicon increased steadily in size;
he acquired 392 nouns, of which 160 were complex (41 "10). A probable neces-
sary condition for the learning of the gender assignment rules mentioned
above, that is, a sufficient number of examples, would therefore be given only
in the last part of the 3rd year.
A further analysis of the structure of these words indicates other limiting
conditions on acquisition. The diminutive endings -Ie and -chen are well re-
presented among the complex words, in Bubi's lexicon, as well as in that of
Gisela, Georg and Hanna; approximately one-fifth of the complex words have
such suffixes. From Bubi's lexicon, which claims to be a complete listing, it
can be seen that the diminutive forms appear in most cases earlier than, or at
least at the same time as, the form without the diminutive. For example,
Puppchen 'little doll' is produced at 1;0, but Puppe 'doll' later. Knappel 'little
button' is noted at 1 ;6, Knopf at the same time in the form mop. This would
suggest that the child initially learns to attribute the gender of such diminutive
forms to the whole word and that the abstraction of the rules
+ -Ie .... (+ neuter)
+-chen
is only possible when the forms without and with the diminutive suffix are
both present in the vocabulary. There are enough instances of the diminutive
ending, however, to suppose that the rule assigning such derivatives to neuter
gender will be learned relatively quickly. However, as mentioned above, an
identical assignment could be achieved on the basis of the phonetic ending
until the morphological structure of the word is clear to the child.
An analysis of the compound nouns in Bubi's lexicon (a little less than
four-fifths of the complex words) highlights the problems children are faced
with in learning the Last-Member Principle. In order to acquire this principle,
they must first be able to analyze the words into its compound morphemes. In
the case of compounds consisting of another part of speech and a noun, e.g.
verb + noun, Wohnzirnmer 'live + room = living room' or adjective +
noun, Schangeist, 'beautiful + mind = aesthete', the child can only take the
gender of the single noun as determining the gender of the whole (unless other
rules are used). This would not lead to the acquisition of the Last-Member
Principle.
The principle only becomes clear in those compounds which consist of
noun + noun, such as TeelOffel (masc.) 'tea + spoon'. Absolute indication
of the principle only occurs in those compounds which are made up of nouns
of different gender, for example, Bierwagen (masc.) 'beer lorry' = Bier (neut.)
'beer' + Wagen (masc.) 'lorry'. It would not be clear in the previous example,
since both Tee and Laffet have masculine gender. In Bubi's vocabulary, such
conflict cases make up over 50"70 of all compound nouns, so that there is am-
ple basis for the perception of the rule.
Of course, the child must also know the individual nouns and their gen-
ders for it to be clear that such a conflict exists. From the Scupins' vocabulary
list, about half the noun + noun compounds are produced by Bubi at a later
date than the single nouns making up the compound, so that it is possible for
the rule to be learned. For example, the noun Kuchen 'cake' is produced at
1;7, Eier 'eggs' at 1;9 and Eierkuchen 'egg cake' at 1;11. There is some evi-
dence at the age of 2;4 that the child analyzed words into parts, although not
necessarily into known segments; for example, he produced *Marmeschokola-
de instead of Marmelade 'jam' indicating an analysis of the word into Marme
'?' and Schokolade 'chocolate', probably as Scupins suggest, because of the
sweet taste.
There is one instance where Gisela (2;3) produced an incorrect indefinite
article with a compound of which she had earlier produced both parts with a
correct article: *eine SojJepudding 'pudding with sauce' from SojJe (fern.)
'sauce' and Pudding (masc.) 'pudding'. This error could be interpreted as
arising from ignorance of the Last-Member Principle, but, on the other hand,
as this age indefinite articles were not 100"70 correct even with simplex nouns.
Little more can be said from these data than that some of the necessary
conditions for the acquisition of the diminutive rule and the Last-Member
Principle are present by the age of 3 years. This area would be worth analyzing
further making use of spontaneous data. For such an analysis, detailed vocab-
ulary lists like those of Scupin and Scupin are essential; experimentation with
compounds is also possible, although this would be limited to the investiga-
tion of children over the age of 3 years.
Gender and Plural
It was suggested above that the inappropriate use of the feminine definite arti-
cle may be due to confusion with the plural form, especially in those cases
where the plural is zero marked. In the rules which Kopcke (1982) describes
for gender assignment, he includes rules which are based on the knowledge of
the plural form, that is, where a particular form determines a gender. In estab-
lishing a hierarchy of rules which leads to the most frequent correct assign-
ment of gender, these morphological rules are ordered after the semantic rules
and before the phonetic rules (see pp. 34- 35). If this hierarchy is related to
acquisition, it would imply that the child would learn the rules based on plural
forms before the phonetic rules. In adult speech, however, the relationship ap-
pears to be the reverse. Wurzel (1984, pp. 77f) argues that plural formation
rules are gender dependent in that plural forms change in the direction of pre-
dictability according to gender rather than vice versa. This dependence of plu-
ral formation on gender seems to be reflected in the order of acquisition. Plu-
ral errors are made by German children until they are 7 or 8 years old (see
Mills, 1986). Mugdan (1977) in examining plural morphology did not find any
evidence of gender being used by children .aged 3 to 7 years in their selection of
the plural form in nonsense words. One would expect to find such evidence if
gender and the plural were closely related to one another from an early age.
The relationship of gender and plural was examined from the data ex-
tracted from the experimental context (see pp. 65 - 66). In these situations, the
children were asked to describe a set of items; where there were two of the
same item, distinguished only by colour, the child could produce the plural
form. It was found that, where the feminine gender nouns were produced in
the plural, the plural form was 100"70 correct. This ties in with Mugdan's find-
ing (1977, p. 153) that the plural form of [-0] ending nouns was quickly ac-
quired. Errors with the neuter nouns were rare, but there were also fewer oc-
casions ou which the plural could have been produced than with the other
nouns. The one error of using die with Auto ignores the restriction that the
plural -s form can only be for masculine or neuter gender nounS. The mascu-
line gender nouns had the most errors in the plural.
Overall, more children made errors with the plural form than with the
gender forms, and there was no clear relation between the two; certainly, chil-
dren who made plural errors did not necessarily make gender errors. The most
common error here was to add no plural marking, which is a frequent error in
general (Mugdan, 1977; Schaner-Wolles, 1978). The omission of marking was
frequent in connection with the item Kamm, which would also appear to be
the least familiar item to the children. Of those children who made gender er-
rors with this item, three formed the plural correctly, two wrongly and seven
added no plural marking. They appeared rather to avoid the plural by a cir-
cumlocution such as ein Kamm, noch 'n Kamm 'a comb, and another comb' .
The plural is clearly not in advance of gender-marked forms. They appear to
be acquired concurrently. If there is any relation between the two, uncertainty
about gender is related to plural error rather than vice versa.
Relative Pronouns and Question Words
The first relative clauses usually appear in the last half of the child's 3rd year
(Mills, 1986). No examples were found in the recordings of Gisela, Hanna and
Georg. In the diary studies, the first relative clauses reported are from the
Sterns' children at the age of 2;6. As these relative clauses do not contain a rel-
ative pronoun, their classification as relative clauses could be in doubt. The
verb is in final position, however, as is correct for a subordinate clause, and
semantically, the interpretation as a relative clause is acceptable. Stern and
Stern also claim that the intonation was appropriate for a relative clause. For
example:
Hilde (2;6): Papa sieh mal *hi/de mach-t hat
Daddy look just Hilde do aux.
past
'Daddy, look (what) Hilde has done'
Hilde (2;6): siehe *auf-(g)e-hangen hat
see up past hang aux.
past
'look, (what) (I) have hung up'
Their son Giinther inserted an otherwise meaningless syllable instead of the
relative pronoun until around the age of 3 years. For example:
Gunther (2;10): meine Blume eigenllich ist, *e
my flower really is
Hans (g)e- gib- I hat
Hans past give past aux.
'that's really my flower that Hans gave'
Gunther (3;2): das isl ein Pilz *mm in Walde ist
in wood is that is a mushroom
'that is a mushroom which is in the wood'
Obviously, no information is available about gender marking from these
undifferentiated forms or instances where the relative pronoun is omitted.
Gender marking is not observable either on the relative pronoun form re-
ported by Grimm (1973) in 3-year-old children. She reports that the children
in her sample (3 - 4 years old) predominantly used wo as the relative pronoun
in the clauses they produced. In Standard German, wo is the form of the loca-
tive interrogative pronoun 'where' and is also a possible form of the relative
pronoun used with a preposition. For example:
das Thema,
the topic
wo-
rel.pn.
ruber er spricht
about he talk +
prep.
'the topic he is talking about'
present
In some dialects, however, wo is also used as the relative pronoun in subject
and object function. It is this use which predominates in the children's relative
clauses according to Grimm's data, for example:
Child (ca. 3;0): das isl ein Miidchen, wo in die Schule geht
that is a girl rel.pn. in the school goes
'that is a girl who goes to school'
Child (ca. 3;0): aber die Puppa, wo die Uschi hat
but the doll rel.pn. the Uschi has
'but the doll which Uschi has'
------------------------
Grimm took her sample of children from the Heidelberg area, where wo is
used in this way in the local dialect. The same usage is reported in children
from Gottingen, but it has not been possible to establish whether the local dia-
lect has this form. It is obviously relevant to establish what the influence of
the local dialect is. It could be the case that all children use this form, indepen-
dent of dialect usage, since it is uninfluenced by case inflections and gender.
Around the age of 4 years, Grimm reports that the children produce an in-
termediate form combining wo and the standard relative pronoun der, die,
das etc. For example:
Child (ca. 4;0): ich hab ein
I have a
Heinze/mann,
Heinzelmann
der
rel.pn.
rnase. rnasc.sg.
nom.
mach-ern) kann
do can
infin. modal
'I have a Heinzelmann who can go like this'
In these forms, gender errors do not appear to occur.
*wo so
rel.pn. thus
Until the age of 4 years, it is therefore difficult to observe gender marking
in the relative pronoun. This does not necessarily imply, however, that gender
marking is the reason for the standard forms of the pronoun not being pro-
duced. A more likely factor would seem to be the case marking problems in
the relative pronoun, to which gender is inextricably linked in the paradigm.
From these data, it can only be said that, when relative pronouns in their stan-
dard form are first produced, gender marking is well established.
The same appears to be true when the question word welch- 'which' first
is used. This form starts to be produced around the age of 4 years, and gender
appears to present no problem. The acquisition of the pronouns wer 'who'
and was 'what' will be dealt with under the section covering the animacy rule.
Experimental Investigation
Observations made of children's spontaneous productions are essential in giv-
ing an account of acquisition. Nevertheless, through experimental testing, the
researcher can have access to behaviour which might only rarely be observed
under natural conditions and so give a more complete account of acquisition
processes. In particular, the acquisition of formal rules could be examined us-
ing a controlled set of nouns, which makes it possible to compare the status of
rules at a particular stage.
Experimental Testing of the Selection of the Definite Article for Real
Words by 5- to 6-Year-Old German Children
Method. The use of the definite article was compared across the three genders
in an experimental task with 5- and 6-year-old children. The children (24 boys,
24 girls) were asked to tell the experimenter which form of the article was cor-
rect with each of ten nouns. The nouns were illustrated by presenting the cor-
responding toy or object. The instructions were as following:
"lch vergesse das immer. HeiBt es def Pferd, die prerd oder das prerd?"
'I always forget. Is it der Pferd, die prerd or das Pierd?'
Four neuter, three masculine and three feminine nouns were included; the
nouns could all be classed as frequent in terms of a child's vocabulary (see Ap-
pendix B). The order of presentation of the three gender forms was varied
across all ten nouns, and the order of presentation of the ten nouns was also
randomized across subjects.
The children all attended a Southern German kindergarten. They were se-
lected in order to achieve an even spread of age and an equal division of sex.
The author as experimenter was familiar to the children from previous visits
to the group. The testing was presented as a play situation. The children were
tested individually in a separate room of the kindergarten. The responses were
tape-recorded.
Results and Discussion. As can be seen from Figure 4.1, more errors were pro-
duced in this task and with these nouns than in the spontaneous utterances
previously discussed. The number of errors is still comparatively small, 14"7.
of the total. There is a significant difference in the number of errors made in
the choice of the article, according to the gender of the noun ()(2 = 13.07;
d/= 6; p<O.OI). Fewer errors were made with the feminine gender nouns
than with the masculine and neuter. This matches the findings with the spon-
taneous utterances.
There was no difference between the boys and girls on the task. Two chil-
dren had the strategy in the task of making all nouns der; one child made all
nouns die. This may well be a task-specific strategy, however.
When the phonetic structure of the tested words is examined (see Appen-
dix B for detailed results), there are few cases in which a clear prediction can
be made about the gender. Of the feminine nouns, Katze has an -e ending
which is associated with feminine; Uhr is also feminine on the basis of the -ur
rule. This could explain the higher performance on these nouns compared
with nouns of masculine or neuter gender. Maus (fern.) should be associated
with masculine or neuter gender on the basis of a structure rule (Kopcke,
1982, p. 83), but this does not apparently lead to a greater number of errors.
The gender seems to have been learned independently of the phonetic struc-
ture, possibly by rote, since it is a frequent item in a child's vocabulary. Of the
0
0
0
0
0
0
mase. fem. neutr.
Gender of the noun
Fig. 4.1. Selection of the German definite article. A total of ten nouns were presented
to each of 48 German children (24 boys and 24 girls, 5 - 6 years old) with the three
possible forms of the definite article. The children were asked to select the correct
form. Their responses are analyzed according to the gender of the noun
other nouns, Schwein (neut.) should be assigned masculine gender on the basis
of rule 10 (see Table 2.7), but the masculine selections did not clearly
predominate over feminine ones in the erroneous choices. The other nouns are
associated with either masculine or neuter gender on the basis of various rules,
but here, too, when an error is made, feminine gender is not obviously avoid-
ed. All that can be said is that it seems plausible that phonetic principles are
applied in the case of some feminine gender nouns in this age group.
Experimental Testing of the Use of Phonetic Rules in 7- to 8-Year-Old
German Children
The evidence collected so far suggests that German children start to use some
phonetic rules early on, but only those rules which have a wide application in
the vocabulary, as in the association of the ending -e with feminine gender.
Using the experimental design described above with adults (see pp. 45 - 50),
knowledge of nine phonetic rules was tested in slightly older primary school
children.
Method. A group of 16 children (eight boys, eight girls) aged between 7;6 and
9;0, all attending the same Southern German primary school, were tested on
the 44 nonsense words in Appendix A illustrating the nine phonetic rules. The
children were all pupils in one class and were tested as a group by me as experi-
menter in the presence of the class teacher. The subjects were presented with a
typed list of the nonsense words distributed face down; on the list, two ver-
sions of each word were given with two of the possible three definite articles
(see Appendix A). Half the subjects received the list in the order 1-44; half
received a list in the reverse order. It was explained to the children that they
would see two versions of words which they did not know and that they
should indicate on the paper which version, i.e. which definite article they felt
was appropriate. An example was written on the board to illustrate the proce-
dure. The subjects were then asked to turn over the sheet and begin.
When all children had completed the task, they were asked, as a group
(because of time constraints), to say if they had thought of a real word when
completing the task. All children in the class were tested (21 pupils), but five
response sheets were eliminated because the pupils had a bilingual back-
ground.
Results and Discussion. The results of the gender assignment task are set out
in Table 4.5. The assignments conforming to the rule are given as percentages.
The results from the same test carried out with adults (pp. 45 - 50) are repeat-
ed alongside for the purpose of comparison.
There was a significant number of rule-conforming gender assignments
for all rules except 6, 7 and 8. Because the percentage of assignments con-
Table 4.5. Percentage of rule-conforming gender assignments to nonsense words by 7-
and 8-year-old German children
Rule Example of test word Children Adults
(n = 16) (n = 30)
1. kn- -..-)0 masculine Knich 77*** 72***
2. ~ } r - --!o masculine Draff 80*** 58.5
3. SC- --+ masculine Still 64* 56.5
5. ec - cc --+ masculine Gro1ch 70*** 66***
1+5,3+5,2+5 Knirf, Sperf, Trilch 69*** 79***
1+4+5,3+4+5,2+4+5 Knink, Spank, Trant 74*** 85***
6.
_ ft
,
--!o feminine Kaft 45 69.5***
7. - ~ r --+ feminine Luhr 53 80***
8. - et --+ neuter Flett 61 82.5***
9. -i::n --!o neuter Sier 67* 64.5***
Note. A group of 16 German children were asked to select a gender from two possibili-
ties presented for each of 44 nonsense words. The nonsense words were constructed so
as to be examples of different phonetic regularities associated with a particular gender.
The responses were analyzed according to the different rules and the assignment of
gender according to the rule. The total scores for each ruJe were tested for their
deviation from the null hypothesis (*p<0.05, **p<O.OI, ***p < 0.001). The results
obtained from German adults (see pp. 45 - 50) are also presented for comparison by
inspection.
forming to rules 1, 2 and 5 was generally high, the additive effect of combin-
ing rules was not so clearly observable as with the adults. The children pro-
duced a significantly higher number rule-conforming assignments based on
rules 2 and 3 than did the adults. If the problem item of SchlojJ is discounted
from the results, as discussed earlier (see pp. 49 - 50), the percentage of
gender choices based on rule 3 increases to 75"10. These will be discussed in
more detail below.
The two rules associating an ending in monosyllabic words with feminine
gender, as formulated in rules 6 and 7, achieved a result at the chance level.
Because these rules are not clearly distinct from the others in the number of
words they apply to or in the number of exceptions to the rule that exist, these
factors would not seem to explain the low degree of conformity to the rule.
Monosyllabic nouns in German are significantly disassociated with feminine
gender, however, as was discussed above (see pp. 32-33), so that children at
this age may be using a rule that monosyllabic nouns must be either masculine
or neuter, but not feminine. This explanation is supported by an analysis of
the erroneous gender choices. Since there was a binary choice for each item
and the 'incorrect' gender alternative was split equally between the two other
genders, the choice of feminine gender should be around 50%. The erroneous
choice of feminine constituted 42%, however, which indicates a mildly signifi-
cant tendency to avoid the feminine in this context (p<0.05). Rule 8 for neu-
ter nouns was also not significantly used by the children. The children may not
only disassociate monosyllabic nouns with the feminine, but may generally as-
sociate them with masculine gender. This association would account for the
fact that their performance resulted in a higher proportion of choices con-
forming to rules 2 and 3 than did the adults' performance. If this is the case,
the individual rules tested here could be collapsed to one general rule for chil-
dren at this age, with the exception of rule 9.
The real word associations could unfortunately not be quantified for the
children because of a methodological problem in obtaining the information.
Since the children required a considerable amount of time to take the test, the
word associations were collected from the whole group of children once they
had all completed the test. For most items, only one possibility was obtainable
from the group. The responses are analyzed in Table 4.6.
Although it is not possible to know how many children made the real
word associations, the different words noted indicate that the rules were fol-
lowed, since the majority of the words conformed to the rule under test. End-
ings were not so important for the children as for the adults; real word asso-
ciations related to the beginning of the word were made as often. The associa-
tions made for test words embodying rules 6 and 7, which showed a low per-
centage of rule-governed selections, also conformed to the rules. Here, it
would be important to know how many and which children made these asso-
ciations and also whether these real words are produced with the correct gen-
der forms. The ending is apparently the basis for the association but the gen-
der is not necessarily transferred. For the test words predicted by rule 2, which
82
00_ ........ _000
o .,...; 000000
o
o
o
o
o
o
'"
+
"
+
'"
o 00"","
o 0 o 00'"
o o
o 0 o
o 0 o
o
o 0 '"
j
i
revealed a high proportion of rule-conforming selections compared with the
adults' performance, no associated word conformed to the rule, which indi-
cates that the choice of masculine gender was not based on the phonetic rule,
bnt possibly on the association of masculine gender and monosyllabicity, as
suggested above.
It is difficult to assess from these results the effect of the scope and num-
ber of exceptions on the strength of response, since the children's perfor-
mance appears to be dominated by the more general rule of assigning nouns to
masculine gender on the basis of their monosyllabicity. Rule 1, which has the
lowest number of exceptions, produces a high proportion of responses in the
children, which suggests that they are beginning to use this more differentiat-
ed rule. The performance relating to rules 6, 7, 8 and 9, which require the se-
lection of feminine or neuter gende" did not result in a dominant tendency to
select the masculine gender, which suggests that the rule of assigning mascu-
line gender to monosyllabic nouns is weakening in favour of the more differ-
entiated rule, although the response strength is still relatively weak for femi-
nine. Altogether, this indicates that the general rule of assigning masculine
gender to monosyllabic nouns may be predominant overall, but that the chil-
dren in this age group are beginning to learn the differentiated rules.
These results confirm and expand the findings of previous work in various
languages on the acquisition of phonetic rules that properties of the rules affect
the speed of acquisition. For example, Smoczyilska (1986) has compared the
acquisition of gender in Russian and Polish. In Polish, gender-marked forms
appear with correct use before the age of 2 years; in the early stages, Polish
children regularize the irregular instances that they are exposed to. In Russian,
which has a system superficially similar to that of Polish, children tend to use
one ending for all genders, in what Slobin (1973) called 'inflectional imperial-
ism'. There are some crucial variations between the two systems which explain
the differences in acquisition. Whereas the Polish system has some irregulari-
ties, Russian children have a considerable number of inconsistencies to contend
with in connection with the feminine gender. The Russian unstressed 0, a neuter
ending, is pronounced a, which is identical to the feminine form. Masculine di-
minutive forms that end in -a exist, along with boys' names such as Sasha,
which then have feminine declension but masculine agreement. In the age range
of 1;10- 3;6, Russian children appear to vary in the rules they adopt (Popova,
1958). This range of irregularities makes the learning of these formal principles
far more difficult, hence the lag compared with Polish children.
MacWhinney (1978) tested gender assignment of real and nonce words in
German children aged 3 -12 years in order to examine among other factors
the effect of phonetic endings. As part of the test design, MacWhinney includ-
ed a situation in which the gender was cued by use of the pronoun or indefinite
article. He found that, while children improved significantly with age in their
ability to use this cue from an article or pronoun, it was present even in 3-year-
aIds. This suggests that at age 3, at least some aspects of the gender paradigm
are beginning to be related to one another.
84
MacWhinney did not analyze the gender assignment rules carefully
enough, however, in his selection of material. Since MacWhinney's work is
quoted extensively in other work and false conclusions are made on this basis
the criticism will be presented here in some detail. Endings which were sup:
posed to be clearly associated with a particular gender do not have that asso-
ciation in all cases. For example, MacWhinney chose -sal as an ending indicat-
ing neuter gender; of the ten nouns with the ending (Mater, 1967), two do not
involve the morpheme -sal, one of these has both feminine and neuter gender,
and the other, masculine gender. Of the remaining eight nouns which do have
the morpheme -sal, four are neuter, and four are feminine.
One of MacWhinney's conclusions is that "phonological cues for nonce
gender were most effective for feminine nouns" (1978, p. 68). The two end-
ings chosen did have an actual association with feminine gender, one being a
morphological ending -erei and the other the phonetic form -e. In terms of the
experiment, it can be accepted that the children were following the rule. It
cannot be claimed, however, that the performance with feminine endings was
better than it was with other genders, since the choice of material in the other
cases was faulty. In terms of the data from spontaneous utterances presented
above, MacWhinney's conclusion that the rule associating the ending -e with
feminine gender is one of the first to be learned would nevertheless seem to be
valid.
For only three of the 12 endings which MacWhinney maintained were not
related to a gender could that be said to be the case. The other nine endings are
all clearly associated with a particular gender, for example, -ot with neuter, as
tested in the experiment reported earlier (pp. 45 - 50). The findings are not re-
ported in enough detail in MacWhinney's monograph to allow a full re-evalu-
ation. It is therefore impossible to make use of his findings from the point of
view of relativizing the strength of these phonetic rules.
Schneuwly (1978) tested the assignment of gender in Swiss German chil-
dren between the ages of 3;4 and 5;10. He used nonce words which had end-
ings clearly associated with one of the three genders in Swiss German; -er and
-u were masculine, -e and -ie feminine and -Ii neuter. In the first part of the
test, the child had to produce the article; in the second part, the word was pre-
sented by the experimenter with an 'incorrect' gender, and the child was re-
quired to repeat the item. Firstly, Schneuwly found that the children frequent-
ly refused to produce an article, a strategy which was discussed earlier in con-
nection with the definite article (pp. 67 - 69) in Standard German. Secondly,
he found clear evidence that, when they did produce an article, the children
across the age range used phonetic endings to select gender. In the test using a
mismatch of gender and ending, the children frequently corrected the article
to that predictable by the phonetic rule. It is possible to explain the hierarchy
of endings as determined by the number of correct productions by the fre-
quency of the rule in question in adult language. The -e ending was strongly
associated with feminine gender, as was shown for the Standard German-
speaking children.
To summarize: By the age of 8 years, children are clearly using phonetic
rules. The rules which are in use also appear to be influenced by the scope of
the rules and the proportion of exceptions. Some of the rules still have to be
learned after the age of 8 years, presumably as the child's lexicon expands.
When German children first start to produce forms which can carry gender
marking, their separate treatment of the definite and indefinite articles, as ap-
parent in the longitudinal data, suggests that they build up the connections be-
tween two forms, that is, the article and noun, before arriving at the notion of
a gender paradigm. An awareness that gender-marked forms such as articles,
pronouns etc. are related in that they are determined by the noun and form a
paradigm starts to develop from around the age of 3. It is common for chil-
dren to omit the articles for those nouns the gender of which they are unsure.
Children clearly show the ability to build up distributional patterns in the
sense of Maratsos and Chalkley (1980), but they seem to take longer to do so,
at least in German, than Maratsos and Chalkley claim to be the case. A rele-
vant factor for the speed of pattern acquisition could be the formal similarity
between members of the same paradigm. This needs to be investigated in fur-
ther cross-linguistic research.
It has been demonstrated that German children in general make few er-
rors in gender when they produce a gender-marked form. The fewest errors
are made with feminine gender nouns. When an error in gender assignment is
made with masculine or neuter nouns, the feminine gender form of the article
die is the one most commonly used erroneously; this may be due to the asso-
ciation with the plural article. It was shown, however, that a knowledge of
plural morphology does not precede the acquisition of gender, which implies
that gender is not deduced from a knowledge of the plural form.
The first phonetic rule to be learned, the association of the -e ending with
feminine gender, appears to be the one which also affects the largest part of
the vocabulary, has the fewest exceptions and is clearly represented in the
child's vocabulary. Other rules are acquired as the child's lexicon expands.
Experimental testing has shown that some of these rules are still being learned
at the age of 8 years. The order of acquisition is related to the scope of the rule
and the number of exceptions.
The Acquisition of Semantic Rules in English and German
The Acquisition of the Animacy and Common Gender Rule
Hypotheses
Animacy is a feature which is morphologically marked in many languages and
forms part of the noun classification system in both English and German (see
pp. 17 - 20), but there is debate as to whether this feature is easily acquired.
Siobin (1986b) discusses evidence for the salience of animacy as a grammati-
cizable notion; he considers the role of animacy in contexts which he defines
in pragmatic terms. So, for example, in the Figure-Ground Scene, children
treat location and possession similarly, not differentiating between construc-
tions which are restricted to animate or inanimate nouns. Possession is seen as
a "locative state in which the Ground is an animate being". German children
mark possession on inanimate objects as well as animates, for example, *ei-
senbahns wohnung 'train's house', or use locative prepositions to express the
possessive relation with animates, as in *grojJmamma zu den aile' grandma to
the monkey' (Mills, 1986). In the Manipulative Scene, the patient is most typi-
cally inanimate; English children produce it primarily in object function
(Brown, 1973, p. 249). It has been observed that in languages which mark ac-
cusative case, the first accusatives appear on inanimate nouns. This also ap-
plies to German (Clahsen, 1984, p. 22), but it cannot be proved that this mark-
ing relies on a grammatical distinction of animate and inanimate nouns. It
seems more likely that an animacy distinction is involved indirectly; that is,
the accusative case is related to a non-focus function in the sentence (Zubin,
1979), and in turn, inanimate nouns are associated with this function. In lan-
guages which have distinct accusative forms for animate and inanimate ob-
jects, children appear to have problems in learning the inflections, for exam-
ple, in Polish (Smoczynska, 1986) and in Russian (Gvozdev, 1949). Siobin
concludes: "It remains to be determined whether animacy is, overall, simply
not a highly accessible notion for grammaticization, or whether it is just not
relevant to these particular scenes" (Slobin, 1986b). The animacy aspect in the
gender system is then of interest in ascertaining how quickly this aspect is ac-
quired in terms of linguistic marking and what effect the form of marking
may have on acquisition.
The description of the animacy rule and common gender in English and
German was presented earlier (see pp. 17 - 23). Therefore, only the points
relevant to acquisition will be repeated here.
In German, the relationship between nenter gender and inanimacy is min-
imal. It does not affect the assignment of gender to a particular noun, but ex-
ists rather in contrast to the association of the other two genders with ani-
macy. It is common in speech to children to add diminutives to nouns, includ-
ing nouns for animate referents, which attenuates the correlation between
masculine and feminine gender and animacy. At a point where the relation-
The Acquisition of Semantic Rules in English and German 87
ship of natural gender and masculine and feminine grammatical genders is
strongly perceived, however, it is possible that non-sex-specified entities will
be associated with the neuter form. If this principle is generalized, it will lead
to error.
Neuter gender is related to common gender in a limited semantic field in-
volving animals. The neuter term is used for the superordinate term. Unless
the three members of the set, the male, the female and the common gender,
are known to the child, it would be more difficult to perceive the principle of
common gender in relation to the neuter gender term. When these terms are
considered in respect of a child's vocabulary, some would seem unlikely to be
learned early. For example, it is more probably that a child knows das Schal
'the sheep', but not die Zippe 'ewe' or der Bock 'ram'. In contrast, die Kuh
'cow' and der Stier 'bull' are more frequent, for children at least, than das
Rind 'head of cattle'. It would seem plausible that such a rule is learned late,
when the child's vocabulary has extended to include all three members of the
relevant sets.
In English, the one pronoun form, it, is used for both inanimate referents
and for common gender, which would appear to make it difficult for the child
to distinguish the two rules. It was noted from the analysis of children's
books, however (see pp. 55 - 57), that in books for young children, it is more
rarely used for common gender, being replaced by he; the use of it increased
according to the age of the child the book was intended for. By the age of 10
years, it was the standard form. This input could influence acquisition such
that it is learned in its common gender function comparatively late, but is
more easily identified in its marking of inanimates.
Observational Acquisition Data
A distinction is to be observed in the use of das (neu!.) as the demonstrative
pronoun. This pronoun can be used in reference to inanimates regardless of
the gender of the corresponding noun, as was discussed earlier (pp. 19 - 20).
This use was observed very early in all the children studied. In Gisela, Georg
and Hanna and in the diary studies, there were no instances of this pronoun
form being used in reference to an animate being. In Clahsen's data (1982b),
there was one example only; there, the pronoun was used in reference to a
dog:
Daniel (2;5): das machl leek (Dreck)
'that makes a mess'
Since the pronoun is frequently used by children; it can be concluded that this
rule is learned quickly. Its acquisition may follow in stages: The first restric-
tion would be to exclude human reference, followed by animal reference.
It might be assumed that the early learning of this rule would carryover to
the marking of gender with articles. From the spontaneous utterances of Ger-
man children reported earlier (pp. 64 -71), there was no evidence from gender
assignment to animate and inanimate nouns that gender marking here was af-
fected by this distinction in any way. The children showed no tendency to as-
sign predominantly neuter gender to inanimate nouns; in fact, the erroneous
use of neuter gender was rare. Georg produced die Kind (neut.) 'child' in one
instance in which he knew the child to be a girl. This error could be interpreted
as an avoidance of neuter gender with an animate referent where the sex was
known.
The results of the experiment (see pp. 78 -79) in which 5- and 6-year-old
children were required to select a definite article for ten existing nouns were
examined for any possible effects of the animacy/inanimacy distinction. The
performance related to inanimate nouns was compared with that for animate
nouns (see Appendix B). The animate nouns all referred to animals. Of these,
the two neuter gender terms were superordinate terms; the masculine and fem-
inine gender terms could be used in both the generic and the sex-specific sense.
A significant difference was found between the two groups (X
2
= 9.83; df= 2;
p<O.OI); performance relating to the inanimate nouns showed greater rule
conformity than that elicited with the animate nouns. It is possible that some
children are aware of the possibility of sex-specific reference in the animate
nouns and choose the definite article according to the sex they assign to the
animal. The association between masculine and feminine genders and male
and female sex seems to be well established at this age, as will be discussed in
the next section. It would then be expected that the children would, in com-
parison to wrong neuter choices, make more feminine choices for the mascu-
line gender nouns and more masculine choices for the feminine gender nouns;
this is only marginally the case. It would appear then that the linking of ani-
macy to masculine and feminine gender is only one factor interacting with
others, possibly the formal properties of the words concerned.
An association between neuter gender and inanimacy is clearly present in
the adult German speaker. It may be the case that this only rarely leads to er-
ror in the choice of gender marking in acquisition and is moreover only ob-
servable at the metalinguistic level in children. One 5-year-old child was cor-
rected by his mother for saying *das Kran (masc.) 'crane' and replied:
Child (5;8): Ich sage das Kran; es ist doch kein Bub.
'I say the (neuL) crane; it isn't a boy'.
It is not clear whether this association of gender and sex is at the root of the
error or whether it is a post hoc rationalization. The metalinguistic association
between gender and sex, and by implication neuter and no sex, is, however,
clearly present.
In a sex assignment task which will be reported in a later section (pp.
122-130), children aged between 3 and 10 years were asked to assign a sex to
a set of toys. The toys represented six animate nouns and four inanimate
nouns. The German children asked to perform this task found no problem in
doing so. The youngest English children (3 -4 years) found the task difficult
to complete, particularly with inanimate nouns. A frequent comment was it's
not a girl or a boy; it's a book. This observation can be interpreted as showing
that the English children have a stronger association of inanimacy with no sex
which makes the task more difficult, whereas the German children find it
easier to overlook inanimacy in the task through the marking of the gender
system. This interpretation is tentative and will be explored further in the dis-
cussion of psychological gender in a later section.
Brener (personal communication, 1984) has investigated the comprehen-
sion of it in an experimental task in which children aged between 3 and 6 years
and adults had to identify the referent of the pronoun. In four different
scenes, a baby; a baby and book; a dog; or a dog, baby and book were the
possible choices. The adults chose an inanimate referent wherever possible,
but were happy to select a dog or baby if that was the only option. The youn-
gest children also chose an inanimate referent wherever possible. In those pic-
tures where only an animate referent was possible, they showed that they were
experiencing difficulty by hesitating for a long time or by selecting an arbi-
trary inanimate item such as a piece of clothing one of the people in the dia-
logue was wearing. The older the children, the more they behaved like the
adults in being prepared to select an animate referent if necessary and showing
preference for the dog as opposed to the baby. For the younger children, then,
it is first associated with inanimacy and only later acquires the common gen-
der function.
In his investigation of interrogative pronouns in several languages, Wade
(1971) found that the identification interrogative pronouns were acquired af-
ter the locative in both English and German. Of the identification pronouns,
the impersonal what and German was were learned before the personal who
and wer. The impersonal form was overgeneralized to contexts requiring the
personal form. This occurs somewhat later than the acquisition of the pro-
nouns das and it, for which such errors are rare. This finding was confirmed
for German by the longitudinal study of Greenhalgh (1976). The fact that in
both languages the impersonal interrogative pronoun can be used under cer-
tain circumstances as the unmarked form (see pp. 17 - 20) may be the source
of this overgeneralization.
These data suggest that the animate/inanimate distinction is established
early on in the pronoun systems of both languages, which would go against
Siobin's claim that animacy is not a highly accessible notion for gram-
maticization. The comparison of English and German with respect to the in-
fluence of structural factors will be pursued in more detail in experimental
tasks reported in the following sections.
The Use of Pronouns Referring to Animates and Inanimates in a
Production Task by 5- to 10-Year-Old English and German Children
Method. The use of gender-marked pronouns was tested with German and
English children using a sentence completion task. The child was presented
with a picture in which the referent of the nouns was depicted in a situation:
For example, the child was shown a picture of a horse standing in a stable eat-
ing hay. The experimenter (the author) then read the child a sentence in which
the noun was mentioned once. In the second sentence, the pronoun was omit-
ted and indicated by an exaggerated pause. For the example situation, the sen-
tences were:
English: The horse is standing in the stable.
. .. is eating hay.
German: Das Pferd steht im Stall.
... friBt Heu.
The child was then asked to complete the second sentence. It was expected
that the child would produce a pronoun. The instructions were: (English)
"Here you have a picture. I will read two sentences, and I will leave something
out. Can you fill in the gap?" (German) "Hier siehst Du ein Bild. Ich lese Dir
zwei Stitze vor und dabei lasse ich etwas aus. Kannst Du mir sagen, was
fehlt?" The sentences with the missing pronoun were constructed so that for
the animate nouns, half contained an argument only possible with an animate
noun, half contained an argument possible with either an animate or an inani-
mate noun. The sentences with the inanimate nouns were constructed in the
same way; that is, half contained an argument only possible with inanimate
nouns, and half an argument possible with both. This made it possible to
check the influence of the sentential context as opposed to the reference to the
preceding noun. The child was given two trial items before the test began. If
the child failed to produce a pronoun, the instructions were repeated and the .
sentence presented again.
Twelve nouns were tested, six animate and six inanimate. In German,
these were equally distributed across the three genders (see Appendix C). The
animate nouns all referred to animals and were the generic terms. The two
neuter animates were superordinate terms for German das Pferd 'horse', das
Schwein 'pig'. Of the masculine and feminine sets, one term in each had only
the generic function der Ele/ant 'elefant' and die Maus 'mouse'.
The children tested were between the ages of 5 and 10 years. They were di-
vided into three age groups (5;0 - 6;11, 7;0 - 8;11, 9;0 - 10;11) of 24 children
each (12 boys, 12 girls). The English children were all attending junior schools
in the South of England. The German children in the first age group were at-
tending a kindergarten in Southern Germany; the older children were attend-
ing a Grundschule. The children were selected, from those for whom parental
consent for testing had been obtained, on the basis of their age and sex so as to
achieve equal distribution across the groups. The children were tested individ-
ually in the school or kindergarten in a separate room. They were familiar
with the experimenter from her previous visits to the class, and the test situ-
ation could be introduced in a relaxed atmosphere. The children's responses
were recorded on tape.
Results and Discussion. The full results of the test are set out in Appendix D
and presented graphically in Figure 4.2 for English and in Figure 4.3 for Ger-
man. For neither group was there a significant effect from the structure of the
argument of the second sentence. The results are therefore pooled.
Figure 4.2 shows the res].llts for the English children contrasting the pro-
portion of the use of it with animate and inanimate nouns across the three age
groups, boys and girls taken separately. These results were analyzed statisti-
cally using a four-way chi-square analysis (Lienert, 1978). The four factors
were the age of the children, the sex of.the children, the animacy of the refer-
ent and the pronoun used (inanimate or animate). The children in the youn-
gest age group (5 - 6 years) and the 7- to 8-year-old girls made significantly
fewer it references to the animate nouns and significantly more non-it refer-
ences. The most common non-it pronoun used was he. The 9- to 10-year-old
100
Dlnonimate
80

c
0
'" U
J
-0
0
0.
60
."
'0
0
'"
40
0
C
0

0
CL
20

Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls
5-6-year-olds 7-8-year-olds 9-10-year-olds
Fig. 4.2. Use of pronoun it by English children. A group of 72 children in three age
groups were tested for their use of pronoun forms with animate and inanimate
referents. The production of it is indicated as a percentage in order to compare the
influence of animacy of the referent across age. The other responses were uses of he
and she
92
100

"
80
0
c
0
0
c
0
"- 60
U
c
c
0
u
'0
40
rn
0
C
u
20

CL
Dlnanimate

Mosc. Neut. Mosc. Neut. Mosc. Neut.
Fem. Fem. Fem.
5-6-year-olds 7-8-year-olds 9-10-year-olds
Fig. 4.3. Animacy and use of pronoun by German children. A group of 72 children in
three age groups were tested for their use of pronouns with animate and inanimate
referents. The production of the form matching the grammatical gender of the noun is
indicated as a percentage in order compare the influence of animacy across age
boys and girls make significantly more it responses to inanimate nouns and
fewer non-it references. The boys in this group made significantly fewer non-it
responses to animates.
Figure 4.3 shows the results for the German children according to the gen-
der of the noun and contrasting correct pronoun use between animate and in-
animate nouns across the age groups. Since there was no significant difference
between boys and girls, the results were pooled. Use of the pronouns er, sie, es
and the form derived from the article der, die, das were accepted as correct re-
sponses.
The German children in the age range tested are already performing at too
high a level for any effect to be significant across the whole group. Only the
results for 5- to 6-year-old children were analyzed on a one-way chi-square
test. For this group, significantly more errors were made in the choice of the
pronoun with the animate nouns than with the inanimate nouns (X
2
= 10.13;
df = 2; p<O.Ol). By inspection, it can be seen that this effect was predomi-
nantly found with the neuter animate nouns.
The results for English can be easily interpreted. The use of it increases
with animate and inanimate nouns consistently with age, until, at the age of
9 -10 years, it is almost 1000/0 with inanimate nouns. The alternative to the
use of it is he. It is not clear whether this is being used in the generic sense.
There is a systematic difference across all age groups between animate and in-
animate nouns; the use of he for animate nouns is more frequent than the use
of it in the 5- to 6-year-olds, but the use of he steadily decreases with the older
children. The pronoun it would seem to be strongly associated with inanimacy
by the younger children and gradually takes over the function of common
gender pronoun for animates from the pronoun he. This would seem to reflect
the one form-one function principle found in many other cases of acquisition
(Karmiloff-Smith, 1979) ..
The use of he with inanimate nouns reflects adults' use of this pronoun in
a lively style (see pp. 23 - 26), which is relatively common in speech to chil-
dren. The systematic increase in the use of it with age mirrors the use found in
children's books reported earlier(pp. 55 - 57), in which the use of it increased
with the age at which the text was directe4.,.,There is almost certainly a two-
way interaction here between the speech of children and the input.
The later acquisition of it in its common gender function goes against the
hypothesis that this form in this function will be the first acquired since it is
unmarked. The early use of he as the common gender and personification pro-
noun in reference to inanimates goes against Vachek's hypothesis that this
form is 'emotionally marked' (see pp. 25 - 26) and so will be learned later.
The choice of the sex-marked pronouns was affected by the noun in the
animate group (see Appendix D). The nouns cat and mouse had the majority
of the she references. The noun car, which is traditionally pronominalized
with she if the inanimate pronoun is not used, did not have more she refer-
ences than the other nouns. The use of he here may be linked to sex stereo-
types associated with the referent. The association of particular referents with
a sex will be explored in the following chapter.
The German results have to be interpreted in terms of the role of gram-
matical gender. The finding in the experiment with gender assignment report-
ed earlier became clearer here. More gender errors are made in the use of the
pronouns with animate nouns than with inanimate nouns. The majority of er-
rors were made with the neuter animate nouns Pferd 'horse' and Schwein
'pig', in that masculine or feminine, pronouns were used in reference to these
nouns. There was a consistent difference in the performance relating to the
animate and inanimate nouns for the two younger age groups, although the
number of errors decreased with age. There were no errors in the eldest group.
The use of a pronoun which did not match the grammatical gender was
classified as an error. This is not strictly correct in this case, however, since it
is possible in German to switch from grammatical gender to semantic gender
in pronominal reference (see pp. 51 - 53). It is possibly that this behaviour
should be interpreted in this light, rather than as an error of grammatical gen-
der assignment. The fact that pronouns were under test here is significant,
since this switch is permissible in pronoun use.
This interpretation ties in with Karmiloff-Smith's results (1979) with
French children. She found that, in reference to nonce words referring to dolls
94
with natural gender, children commonly made the pronoun fit the semantic
gender, whereas the article was selected according to formal properties of the
noun. The saliency of natural gender in animate nouns appears to be high and
competes with the grammatical gender in the younger children.
This is also parallel to the finding with English children, since they also
made more choices of a sex-specific pronoun with animate nouns. The English
children are allowed more freedom of choice in terms of the rules of the sys-
tem, however, since both it and a sex-specific pronoun are acceptable accord-
ing to different grammatical rules. The choice of a sex-specific pronoun is, in
adult grammar, appropriate in lively style, particularly when speaking to chil-
dren. The children of 9 -10 years appear to have learned this stylistic differen-
tiation and so avoid the use of he and she in the 'normal' context; they apply
the it rule in conformity with adult usage.
Support for the finding that English and German children avoid it or neu-
ter gender with animate nouns comes from a second experiment which will be
reported in detail in a later section. A group of 3- to 4-year-old children were
asked to describe pictures in which people of different sex were depicted in or-
der to elicit pronoun use. One of the items was a baby in which no sex could
clearly be identified. This noun can be pronominalized with it in English; in
German, the noun das Baby has neuter gender. Once the children had made
one pronominal reference to the baby, they were then asked to identify the sex
of the baby by giving it a name. Two further pronoun uses were elicited. It
was found that, of the 32 English children tested, only one used the pronoun it
to refer to the baby before sex specification; the other children all used a sex-
specific pronoun, predominantly he. Of the 32 German children, seven used
das to refer to the baby in accordance with the grammatical gender of the
noun. The other children used a sex-marked pronoun immediately. Five 4-
year-olds and two 3-year-olds used the grammatically determined pronoun es,
which, seen in the light of the experiment reported earlier, can be interpreted
as a general increase with age towards grammatical gender. In general, natural
gender seems highly salient in these young children, since the majority make
the sex-specific choice.
To summarize: 5- to 6-year-old English and German children are influ-
enced in their choice of pronouns by the animacy of the noun. The English
children prefer a sex-marked pronoun to the impersonal it; the German chil-
dren to some extent choose a sex-marked pronoun to refer to animate neuter
nouns. Animacy is present as a notion for children learning both languages,
although the possibility of its influencing linguistic behaviour in conformity
with the grammatical rules is greater in English than in German. The German
children conform to the rule of grammatical gender absolutely by age 9 and
10. The English children, too, adopt standard adult usage by this age, appar-
ently having learned the stylistic differentiation between the use of it and sex-
marked pronouns in this context. This assumption was explored further in the
following experiment.
The Use of Pronouns Referring to Animates and Inanimates in an
'Animating' Context Compared in English Adults and in 9- to 10-Year-Old
Children
As was seen from the experimental results with pronoun use, the English chil-
dren used the pronoun it for inanimate nouns over 90"70 of the time by the age
of 9 and 10 years. As described earlier, (pp. 23 -26), in certain stylistic con-
texts, the personification rule applies; that is, the use of it is avoided in favour
of the animate term he, which gives the possibility of associating animate
qualities with the referent. In order to examine how sensitive children are to
this 'animating' context, a was designed to examine the use of pronouns in
such a context. AdUlts were also. tested for purposes of comparison.
Method. The context was that of a children's story in which the nouns to be
pronominalized referred to toys which interacted with one another
as if human. The nouns used comprised four inanimate and six animate, over-
lapping with the items tested in the previous experiment. Care was taken to
avoid, as far as possible, personality characteristics or actions which might be
associated with one sex and another and so prejudice the choice of pronoun.
The task was to complete the blanks in a text constructed on the lines of a
cloze test. A total of 55 blanks were included. Of these, 20 were inserted so
that a pronominal reference to the nouns under test was appropriate, while the
other 35 items were intended as distractors. Two references were included for
each noun, since the cloze test procedure can never guarantee a response of
the word class desired. The following excerpt illustrates the structure of the
test (see Appendix E for the full text).
'How (13) a game of hide and seek?' suggested the pig, (14)
____ the subject.
'I (15) know why you (16) to play that. You're much
too fat to hide (17) " said the book and (18) looked
at the pig disapprovingly. The pig hung (19) head in shame.
The adult subjects were 48 English native speakers: 24 male and 24 female
aged between 15 and 71 years. The mean age of the men was 27 years and of
the women, 23 years. All subjects were middle class, mainly with an academic
background. The majority were resident or studying in the area of York. The
subjects volunteered for the test and were seen individually in a room of the
university by the author.
The children tested were between 9 and 10 years of age, 24 boys and 24
girls. This age group was selected since the children in this group selected it for
inanimate nouns in the majority of cases, meaning the deviation from this pat-
tern could be more clearly observed. The children were all attending a junior
school in the area of York and were selected from two parallel classes on the
basis of parental consent and the age range under consideration.
The test was conducted as a group exercise by the experimenter in the
presence of the class teacher. The experimenter was familiar to the children
from previous visits to the school. The test was run in the two classes in subse-
quent teaching sessions to avoid possible discussion of the test content among
the children. The tests were completed in an average time of 9 min for the
adults and 15 min for the children.
Results and Discussion. For scoring, the two responses for each noun were
pooled. If one response was not a pronoun, the categorization was made ac-
cording to the gender of the other response. If the responses included two dif-
ferent pronouns, they were allocated as 0.5 to the two categories. Figure 4.4
shows the responses in per cent for the adults and children, comparing the use
of it with animate and inanimate nouns. The full results are given in Appendix
F.
The results were analyzed using a four-way chi-square analysis. The ef-
fects of age, animacy of the noun and choice were shown to be significant. Sex
of the subject was not significant. The children used it significantly less with
the animate nouns than with the inanimate nouns. This applied also to the
adults, who in general used significantly fewer it references than the children.
100
D'nanimate
80
c
.2
U
0
u
2
60
0.
'"
a
ill
en
40 0
C
ill
U
W
Q.
20
___
Boys Girls Men Women
Fig. 4.4. Use of the pronoun it in an 'animated context', A group of 48 children (9-10
years) and 48 adults were tested for their use of pronouns with inanimate and animate
referents in an 'animated' context. Their responses, as part of a doze test, are
presented as the percentage of it productions in order to compare the influence of
animacy in children and adults on the production of this form; the other responses were
he or she. This table can be compared with Table 4.2 for use in a non-'animated'
context
The adult subjects predominantly used a sex-marked pronoun with both
animate and inanimate nouns, showing a clear effect of the stylistic context,
although the animacy of the noun also affected their choice. The children did
not yet conform to the adult norms, in that they used a sex-marked pronoun
less than the adults. The frequent use of he in younger children would not
therefore appear to be attributable to their using the personification rule in re-
action to the context of their speech. Their use would seem to be rather a re-
flection of input. Whether he has the common gender sense or the sex-specific
sense at this age remains an open question which is extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to answer.
The 9- and 10-year-olds, showed a clear reaction to context, however. If
these results are compared with those in Figure 4.2, the children make more
use of a sex-marked pronoun and less use of it in the animated context. The
children also reflect a difference between animate and inanimate nouns by us-
ing it more frequently for the
As in the previous experiment, the choice of the sex-marked pronoun he
or she was affected by the individual noun in the animate group. The pronoun
he was predominant. The nouns cat and mouse had the majority of she refer-
ences with both the children and the adults. The noun car did not have more
she references than the other nouns with either adults or children. The fact
that the adults do not show this use suggests that the use of the pronoun she
with car, and possibly other vehicles and machines, is associated with a partic-
ular affective context, as Mathiot (1979) has suggested. This affective context
is not present in the text. This question will be pursued in the next chapter.
To summarize: the 9- to 10-year-old children do not react as strongly to
the 'animated context' as the adults. They are still strongly attached to the
grammatical rules which give the pronoun it the function of denoting inani-
macy and common gender. It was seen from the previous study that these
rules are well established by this age. It appears that the children have not
learned to use the personification rule to as great an extent as adults. Both
children and adults, however, use the personification rule to a greater extent
with animates than with inanimates. Control of the personification rule is ac-
quired after the age of 10.
A collation of the findings from the longitudinal data and the experimental re-
sults shows quite clearly that, in respect of the acquisition of the gender sys-
tem, animacy is a significant factor in both English and German and is ac-
quired early. In English, younger children make a strong association between
the pronoun form it and inanimacy as distinct from the other pronoun forms
he and she for animates. The common gender function is only gradually as-
signed to it. In German, the association of animacy with masculine and femi-
nine genders, and then by implication inanimacy with neuter gender, affects
children in acquisition so that they avoid the neuter gender for animate nouns,
particularly in the selection of pronouns.
It has been found that, by the age of 9 or 10 years, German children con-
form to the rules of grammatical gender. At the same age, English children al-
so show that the rules associating it with inanimacy and common gender func-
tion are well established. These rules appear to be so well established that the
children cannot forsake them to use the personification rule. It appears as
though this rule has to be built up around this age. It could not have been the
conceptual basis for the behaviour of the younger children, when they pre-
dominantly used he instead of it. The use of sex-marked pronouns in younger
children would appear to be in association with the natural gender rule and
not related, for the children, to any particular style. An important influence
here must be input, since language directed at younger children contains more
uses of he than language directed at older children.
The investigations have shown that animacy influences the behaviour of
German children in their acquisition of gender, but its influence rarely leads
the children to make mistakes. Their behaviour is dominated by the conven-
tional formal rules. In English, there is more scope for animacy to influence
behaviour, and its influence is correspondingly greater.
Acquisition of the Natural Gender Rule
Hypotheses
As was shown in the previous section, the animacy distinction is learned early
in both languages; the use of the demonstrative pronoun illustrated this clear-
ly. In German, it is not clear that this is the basis for the acquisition of other
gender-marked forms. The different rule structure related to animacy in the
two languages had a strong influence on the areas in which animacy affected
acquisition; German children were affected far less than English children by
the animacy distinction. The natural gender rule, on the other hand, is the
clearest semantic rule which occurs in both languages. A study of this rule will
enable a clearer comparison of the two languages from the point of view of
the relevance of structural factors on acquisition.
The natural gender rule is based on the perception of sex distinctions in
the real world. If it is assumed that this perception occurs independently of
language (see Beit-Hallahmi et aI., 1974, for an alternative view), then the lin-
guistic mapping of the gender concept is dependent on the acquisition of the
concept. English and German speakers would seem to have a similar enough
culture for it to be assumed that the cognitive notion would be acquired at a
similar rate. A prerequisite for the learning of the natural gender rule is the
same in both languages.
Levy (1983) claims that cognitive notions of gender are not exploited by
young children in the acquisition of the gender system. In a comparison of the
data on gender acquisition from several languages, she concludes that the cou-
cept is not salient, and therefore, the natural gender rule is not learned early.
Early acquisition of gender systems is possible where there are formal rules,
whether phonetic or morphological. She writes:
Thus there is evidence that generalizations regarding gender that are found in
early grammars concern the formal non-semantic properties of linguistic gen-
der. On the other hand, children age 2 - 3 seem not to take advantage of
whatever understanding they possess regarding cognitive gender distinctions
in working out the intricacies of the linguistic system. Their inability to see
the linguistic applicability of gender notions is probably another aspect of the
lack of cognitive clarity and cognitive salience of gender at this young age.
(1983, p. 91)
The study presented here will allow this claim to be tested, that is, the claim of
whether one can speak of a "lack of cognitive clarity and cognitive salience of
gender" as a universal applying to the learners of all languages and whether
the natural gender rule is learned late and independently of the structures with
which the concept is linked.
As was discussed earlier, the natural gender rule is embedded in German
in a multitude of other rules and would appear to be less accessible to the
learner than the natural gender rule in English around which the whole system
of gender is based. One could therefore predict that English children will learn
this rule more quickly than German children. On the other hand, the natural
gender rule has been shown to be clearly significant for German adults in their
use of language (see pp. 53 - 55), so that its saliency in German may be greater
than it first appears. It will be seen what effect these factors have on the rela-
tive speed of acquisition of the natural gender rule in the two languages.
Within the acquisition of the natural gender rule in both languages, the
markedness theory of Greenberg (1966a) discussed in an earlier section (see
pp. 9-11) makes the prediction that forms marking male gender will be
learned earlier than those marking female gender, since the former are un-
marked. Deutsch and Pechmann (1978) found a discrepancy between the pro-
duction of dative pronouns in German; ihm 'to him' was produced more fre-
quently than ihr 'to her'. They drew on Greenberg'S markedness distinction to
explain this difference. This claim can be examined for English and German in
the light of the collected material.
Observational Acquisition Data
Data from spontaneous utterances in German show that very few errors are
made, even by 2-year-old children, in the use of the articles with nouns of nat-
ural gender. Only one such error was recorded, from Hanna, who produced
"die Opa (masc.) 'grandpa'. Georg produced "die Kind which was a grammat-
ical gender error in the direction of natural gender, since he knew that the
child was female. The use of the article with proper names is very common in
children's speech, and here, too, usage was error free. It could be argued that
this use is learned by rote, but the very small number of errors suggests that
the rnle is learned early. No errors in pronoun use were found. Experimental
testing will help clarify this question.
In English, data from spontaneous utterances collected by Chiat (1978)
from 2- to 4-year-old children show a varying pattern of usage. In the cross-
sectional study made of 48 children between 1;11 and 4;5, only 15 showed use
of gender-marked forms. One child (2;8) used only male forms for female ref-
erents; another child (4;0) used both indiscriminately. Among the other chil-
dren, there was an "inconsistent overextension of the masculine form female
referents" (1978, p. 120). In the longitudinal study made of ten children be-
tween the ages of 2;1 and 4;1, a varying pattern of usage was again recorded.
One child used only masculine forms until the end of observation at 4; 1, al-
though he used the terms boy and girl correctly. The other children mainly ex-
tended the masculine form to female referents. Two children showed they had
the distinction, but not the paradigm; of these, one used her for female refer-
ents and he and she for male referents, the other child used only the form her
for female referents. The clear general pattern from this study of production
is a partial acquisition only of the natural gender rule by the age of 4.
Brener (1983) studied the comprehension of pronouns of 42 English chil-
dren aged 3 - 5 years. She showed the children a cartoon picture containing
four figures: the Speaker, the Addressee and two Others. The Speaker in the
picture would produce an utterance which contained a pronominal reference
to one of the four figures. The children, having heard the utterance, would be
asked to identify the person referred to in the utterance. When the gender-
marked forms were tested, the two Others would be of different sex so that
differentiation on the basis of gender was essential. For example, a child hear-
ing the utterance "I want to give it to him" would be expected to identify the
male Other in the picture as the referent of him.
Brener found very few errors in the comprehension of the gender-marked
pronouns: 16"10 at the first time of testing, 9% 4 months later. Only one child
(3;1) had consistent problems; the other children made inconsistent errors.
There was no significant difference between masculine and feminine pronouns
in the correctness of their interpretation. Brener also found that the younger
children used gender as the basis of their selection of speaker and addressee, if
they were having problems in this area. Thus, if the addressee in a situation
was of the same gender as the person having the role of Other, the addressee
was often mistakenly identified as the referent for the third person pronoun.
Gender appeared to be a highly salient feature for the interpretation of the sit-
uation.
Baron and Kaiser (1975) also found that children between 3 and 5 years
had little difficulty in understanding the gender-marked pronouns in English
compared with the other pronouns, although their results differ from Brener's
in other respects. They found, for example, no difference in the point of ac-
quisition of first, second and third person singular pronouns; Brener found
early acquisition of first and second person compared with third person. She
attributes the difference to errors in procedure on the part of Baron and Kai-
ser (see Brener, 1986). When an error was made with a third person pronoun
in Baron and Kaiser's task, however, the most frequent mistake was to inter-
pret the pronoun as being of the other gender; that is, he was most often con-
fused with she and vice versa. Like Brener, they also found that gender was
frequently the basis of the wrong interpretation of other pronouns.
To summarize: In German, the natural gender rule appears to influence
production of the articles from an early age. Comprehension and production
appear to be affected by the part of speech under test. In English, comprehen-
sion is influenced by the natural gender rule from the age of 3, but production
of the pronouns still appears to be full of errors at the age of 4. This was inves-
tigated further using an experimental task.
The Use of Pronouns Referring to Sex-Marked Persons in a Production
Task by 3- to 4-Year-Old English and German Children
Method. In each language group, sixteen 3-year-olds and sixteen 4-year-olds
were tested (English: 3-year-olds, x = 3;8, 4-year-olds, x = 4;6; German: 3-
year-aIds, x = 3;6, 4-year-olds, x = 4;6). The age groups were equally divided
between boys and girls. The English children were all attending a playschool
in North England. The German children were all attending a state kindergar-
ten in Southern Germany. Among those children for whom parental permis-
sion had been obtained for testing, a selection was made to achieve an even
spread across the age range and an equal distribution between the sexes. All
the children tested came from a predominantly middle-class background. The
author as experimenter was familiar to the children from numerous visits to
the playschool. The children were tested individually in a room near the group
room; they were fetched by the experimenter and introduced to the task as
part of a game.
The test material consisted of six pictures of individual people in a situa-
tion. The people represented included three children,. one baby, one man and
one woman. The children were shown a picture of the person and were asked
what was in the picture. With the exception of the baby item, a sex-specific an-
swer was required. Again, with the exception of the baby item, the child was
asked to think of a name for the person. This was required, since, in testing
the German children, it would be impossible to ask questions about the person
without formally cueing the gender through the use of the definite article; with
a proper name, this can be avoided. The child was then asked questions about
the person until two pronoun uses were observed. The next picture was then
presented. The questions were formulated so as to elicit predominantly pro-
nouns in subject function, as in "what is the man doing?". The pictures were
presented in random order for each child, with a warm-up item initially. With
the baby item, questioning began after the identification of the person as a
baby until one pronoun reference was made. The child was then asked to spec-
ify the sex of the baby and questioning continued as for the other items. The
first pronoun uses for this item were reported in the preceding section; only
the sex-specific uses are analyzed here. An example is given of a test sequence
in each language to make the procedure clear:
English, Zoe (4:8):
Experimenter shows a picture of a child wearing a dress who is in a field c o l ~
lecting flowers, grasses etc.
E: What's this? (pointing to the person)
Zoe: It's a girl cos be's wearing a dress.
E: Can you think of a name for the girl?
Zoe: Elizabeth.
E: What is Elizabeth doing in the picture?
Zoe: She's pulling up flowers.
E: Where does Elizabeth put the flowers?
Zoe: In the basket.
E: What is Elizabeth wearing? (pointing to hat)
Zoe: a ... a hat, he got a hat on.
Experimenter presents the next test picture.
German, Andreas (3:7):
Experimenter shows a picture of a man leading a horse across a field.
E: Was ist das? (pointing to the person)
Andreas: 'n Mann.
E: Kannst Du Dir einen Namen fUr den Mann ausdenken?
Andreas: mm ... Herr Pohl.
E: Was macht Herr Pohl in dem Bild?
Andreas: Der lauft mit dem Pferd.
E: Wo geht Herr Pohl hin, meinst Du?
Andreas: Nach Hause geht er, zum Bauernhof.
Experimenter shows next picture.
Results and Discussion. The results of the test are presented in Table 4.7. The
responses of the children are categorized in respect of the referent. Since the
children differed to some extent in their sex specification of the children and
baby in the pictures, the sums of the responses under the heading male and fe-
male referent differ. Taken together, the total responses for each language/
age/sex group is always 48. The two pronouns produced are categorized as
one response; as masculine (M) where both pronouns were of masculine
gender, as feminine (F) where both pronouns were of feminine gender and as
mixed (M/F) where one pronoun was masculine and the other feminine. In
German, the use of the definite article in pronoun function was accepted as a
response. The results are presented in sex groups, since this was observed to be
a relevant factor. The results were analyzed using a five-way chi-square analy-
sis.
Table 4.7. Production of gender-marked pronouns in English and German cbildren
Child Pronoun used for
Age Sex Language Male referent Female referent
M F M/F M F M/F
3 Boys English 22 0 3 2 14 7
German 23 0 2 0 22 1
Girls English 8 1 10 3 16 10
German 21 0 3 0 21 3
4 Boys English 23 0 2 4 16 3
German 24 0 0 0 23 1
Girls English 22 0 1 1 22 2
German 24 0 0 0 20 4
Note. A group of 64 German and English children divided equally into age, sex and
language groups were tested for their production of gender-marked pronouns for male
and female referents. Two pronoun uses were obtained for each referent; these are
categorized as one response: as M (masculine), F feminine) or M/F (mixed usage).
The 3-year-old English girls made significantly more errors on both male
and female referents. The English boys in both age groups made significantly
more errors with female referents. The German children showed no effects at-
tributable to age, sex or gender of the referent.
For the discussion of individual effects, the results are presented in graph-
ic form in Figure 4.5. (The columns represent the percentage of correct pro-
noun usage.) The English subjects show no overall effect of the subject's sex.
Both boys and girls made a similar number of errors but, as can be seen from
Figure 4.5, the distribution of errors was different. Significantly more errors
were made with female referents than with male referents (X
2
= 10.85;
p <0.001). The English 3-year-olds made significantly more errors than the 4-
year-olds (X' = 11.38; p <0.001). The difference between the English and Ger-
man children was highly significant, the English children making more errors
than the German children (X'= 30.11; p<O.OOl).
The performance level of German children is already so high in the 3-
year-old group that no development over age is observed. There are no consis-
tently incorrect responses, that is, where both pronoun uses for one referent
are incorrect, and only a few mixed responses. There are marginally more er-
rors for the female referents than for the male referents. There is no difference
between boys and girls; the performance level is apparently too high for any
possible difference to be observed.
The English children reveal a clear development in the production of the
pronouns across the age range. The 3-year-olds make more errors than the
104
100
"
DGerman
w
80
"

c
0
0-
"

U
60
w
"
" 0
u
a
w
40
'" 0
c
w
2
w
20
L

Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls
Male Female Male Female
referent referent referent referent
3-year-olds 4-year-olds
Fig. 4.5. Production of sex-marked pronouns by English and German children. A
group of 64 German and English children divided equally into age, sex and language
groups were tested for their production of gender-marked pronouns for male and
female referents. The values in the graph 'indicate the percentage of correct pronoun
usage. The two pronoun uses for each referent are evaluated here separately (compare
Table 4.7)
4-year-olds, but the majority of these are in the mixed category. Of the consis-
tent errors, there was only one instance of she being used for a male referent,
but ten instances of he being used for a female referent. Fewer errors are made
in general with the male referents, which indicates a generalized used of he, as
Chiat (1978) observed in spontaneous utterances. There was a clear effect of
the child's sex, however, in that the 3-year-olds overgeneralized the use of
their own sex pronoun. In English, there appears to be a complex of factors
which affects the acquisition of the gender-marked pronouns: the sex of the
child, which is influential at the age of 3; a general tendency to overgeneralize
he, possibly through the influence of the generic he; and the nature of the
task, whereby production appears to be retarded compared with comprehen-
sion.
In respect of the claim that unmarked forms (the masculine pronoun) will
be acquired before the marked ones (the feminine pronoun), only the English
children show evidence that this might be the case. The German children are
performing at too high a level, even at the age of 3 years, for any significant
difference to be observed. There are marginally more errors found when the
children are referring to a female referent, that is, when they should be using
the feminine pronoun, than when they are referring to a male referent. With
the English children, there is a clear difference, with fewer errors being made
for the male referent. The masculine pronoun he is also overgeneralized to the
female referent. If markedness affects production in this case, it can only be
one factor among several, since the performance between German and En-
glish children is so different.
Comparing the German children with the English children, German chil-
dren are clearly in advance in their production of the masculine and feminine
pronouns. The German children have already achieved a high performance
level by the age of 3 years. Levy's claim (1983) that children of this age make
little use of the cognitive concept of gender and therefore learn the natural
gender rule late is therefore contradicted by these results.
MacWhinney (1978) (see pp. 83 - 84), whose results Levy uses in her argu-
ment, tested German children's use of the semantic rule based on natural gen-
der and concluded that the children made very little use of the rule. However,
in the test battery of real and nonsense words, which contained items referring
to male and female referents, he also included items referring to people and
animals of indeterminate gender in order to test whether the children would
assign the latter neuter gender. In so doing, the common gender rule is con-
founded with the natural gender rule. MacWhinney pooled the results for
these items and for the natural gender items under the heading of 'semantic
rules', so that it is therefore not possible to draw conclusions about the use of
the natural gender rule as defined in this study. MacWhinney also chose non-
sense words to test, which in some cases had an association with a particular
gender on the basis of phonetic form. As a result, the semantic cue was in
some cases in conflict with the phonetic cue. This makes it almost impossible
to interpret his results in any sensible way.
B5hme (B5hme & Levelt, 1979; B5hme, 1983) tested the comprehension
of the possessive gender-marked pronouns in German with children from age
3 upwards. She compared comprehension with referents having natural gen-
der and referents having syntactic gender. The children were presented with
three dolls for the natural gender task: a male doll, a female doll and a pig
(unspecified gender and neuter syntactic gender). Each doll had a coloured
bow round its neck, and the children were asked to complete the sentence with
the correct colour. Thus, Ihre Schleife is! ... ? 'her bow is .. .' should be com-
pleted by the colour of the bow on the female doll, whereas Seine Schleife ist
... 'his/its bow is .. .' should be completed with the colour of the male doll or
pig. For the syntactic gender task, the three objects der Warfel 'the dice', die
GiejJkanne 'the watering can', and das Boot 'the boat' were of different col-
ours and the children were asked to complete the sentence Ihre/Seine Farbe ist
... 'her/his/its colour is .. .'.30 It will be noted that the possessive pronoun
sein is appropriate for masculine and neuter genders.
30 Footnote 30 see page 106.
The children produced more correct responses in the syntactic gender task
than in the natural gender task, against Bohme's own predictions. She pro-
poses that the phonetic properties of the three inanimate nouns used in the test
may have affected the results. The feminine nouns has the ending -e, which is
associated with feminine gender as discussed earlier. The ending -e/ is associat-
ed with masculine or neuter gender, 28 and Boot could be either masculine or
neuter according to formal properties, but not feminine. The sample is too
small, however, to be sure of the claim.
Other evidence from Bohme's study suggest that the children were aware
of the natural gender rule, even though the results of the comprehension task
do not show that clearly. The same children were tested on their awareness of
relationships between forms and gender by being asked to explain why it is
correct to say, for example, ihre Farbe 'its (fem.) colour' when talking about
the watering can, but seine Farbe 'its (masc.) colour' when talking about the
dice. Here, the children showed more awareness of the natural gender rule
(Bohme, 1983, pp. 238 - 239) than of the syntactic gender rule. An individual
child was more likely to produce an explanation for the natural gender items
than for the syntactic gender items. Explanations for the syntactic gender
items were often related to natural gender in various ways. One child con-
structed a family of dice to explain the male members of the family der Wiir-
fel.
31
It is not clear why the results on the comprehension task show this dis-
crepancy with awareness, and Bohme offers the explanation that phonetic fac-
tors possibly swung the balance in the direction of the syntactic gender items,
since these were not matched by similar factors in the natural gender items.
The result may be related, however, to the particular part of speech under
test. Mulford (1985) found a significant difference in a similar experiment
with Icelandic according to the part of speech tested. The possessive pronouns
did not produce such a high performance level as subject or object pronouns,
for instance. The results of Deutsch and Pechmann (1978) also showed a later
acquisition of the production of pronouns in dative case compared with pro-
nouns in predominantly nominative case. One cannot conclude, therefore,
that the natural gender rule has not been learned by examining only one part
of speech. The correct use of the part of speech may be learned later owing to
other factors, such as the case marking, and not reflect the late acquisition of
the natural gender rule per se. This interaction of the part of speech and rule
reflects the complexity of the acquisition process; children are not able to ap-
ply a rule in every instance across the board.
30 This task imposes a functional load (contrastive reference) on the
forms in connection with syntactic gender which they can usually only carry in
nection with natural gender, as reported earlier (see pp. 39-41). The task in GerM
man is therefore pragmatically questionable. It is not known whether this restriction
applies to other languages.
31 The metalinguistic insight appears to be established early in other languages with an
extensive system of grammatical gender. Taeschner's book on bilingualism in chil-
dren, The Sun is Feminine, (1983) takes its title from such an anecdote.
Mulford also reports on longitudinal data from Icelandic (Pitlsdottir,
1982). Here, the natural gender rule was acquired early, as with the German
children. Correct use of gender-marked forms with semantic gender nouns
reached the 100"70 level between 2;11 and 3;0 with one particular child; with
other nouns, the 100% level was reached between 3;1 and 3;2. It seems unlike-
ly that gender should be cognitively clearer and more salient for Icelandic chil-
dren than for the children Levy reviewed. Mulford argues that the different
results which have been obtained for different languages can be explained by
the varying regularities in the languages concerned. Some languages may have
clearer phonetic rules than semantic rules, so that the semantic rules are
learned later, as Levy wanted to claim for all languages. Some languages have
clearer semantic than phonetic rules, so that the phonetic rules would be
learned later. The findings here for German support this conclusion, in that
the German children learned the natural gender rule early, like the Icelandic
children. It does not, however, explain w\)y English children should be behind
German children in this respect, since they have no competing phonetic rules.
This will now be explored.
The German children'S advantage over English children can be attributed
to two main factors: the extensive system of gender marking and the formal
distinctiveness of the pronouns. The fact that the natural gender rule is em-
bedded among other rules for the German children appears to have no nega-
tive effect on their learning of the rule. It would rather appear that the exten-
sive system of grammatical gender marked on many different parts of speech
gives the German child more opportunity to seek regularities in the system and
to learn to produce these forms accurately. The fact that the natural rule ap-
plies only to third person pronouns in English, which are learned later than
the articles etc., means that English children literally have less practice in pro-
ducing the gender-marked forms.
The form of gender marking is also relevant here. Firstly, German chil-
dren commonly use the definite article in the pronoun function, as do many
adults in spoken German: for example, der hat's gemacht 'he did it' as an al-
ternative to er hat's gemacht. This formal identity between the pronoun in this
case and the article will make it easier to find the pronoun form appropriate
for a particular noun (Peters, 1986). Secondly, the actual pronouns are also
phonetically similar to the articles, der and er(masc.) as opposed to die and sie
(fern.); the two genders are thus phonetically distinct. The phonetic similarity
of the gender-marked pronouns in English in subject case, he and she, and the
similarity of he with the feminine her may cause difficulty in learning to pro-
duce these forms. Several children only used the her form for the feminine
pronoun, as in her got a handbag; the similarity with he through the initial
consonant may mean that they are perceived as being in free variation, which
would account for the mixed usage. Phonetic problems can be seen as influ-
encing acquisition in other areas (see Karmiloff-Smith, 1978).
The use by adults of generic he may also be a source of confusion for the
English children. Utterances from older children indicate that the generic use
of he is quite common. When the child has already made a female sex specifi-
cation, he is sometimes used 'erroneously' apparently in this generic sense.
For example, when talking about a ball to which he had given a female name,
a lO-year-old child said I didn't think a boy's name would suit him much. A 7-
year-old child said of a toy elephant if it was a girl, I'd name him Alison. The
double function of he could lead to an overgeneralization of the form in
younger children, which might explain the better performance with this pro-
noun in general.
Pronouns in German which refer to an entity with natural gender can take
on more functions than those referring to items with grammatical gender only
(see pp. 39 - 41). These additional functions may make the natural gender rule
perceptually more salient and thus contribute towards the natural gender rule
being acquired relatively quickly.
As was mentioned above, there is in German a strong link in adult usage
between grammatical gender and natural gender. Utterances from German
children indicate that this link exists from an early age, as B6hme's (1983)
metalinguistic data also showed. As was reported earlier, a boy (6;8) was cor-
rected by his mother for saying *das Kran (masc.) 'crane' and replied ich sage
das Kran, es is! doch kein Bub 'I say the (neut.) crane, it isn't a boy'. The boy
is clearly making the link between the masculine definite article der and male
sex. Another German boy (6;10) said of a toy [Maus (fern.)] das ist aber kein
Mddchen. Man kann auch sagen der Maus. The child wanted the mouse to be
a boy, but the article had to fit in terms of gender. The form der Maus does
actually appear in the paradigm in dative case, which may make this jump
easier. The rapid acquisition of the natural gender rule and the metalinguistic
evidence of its existence can well be due to its importance in adult usage.
The difference that was found between English and German children was
in the area of production. From previous research, English children appear to
comprehend the gender distinction in the third person pronouns quite reliably
around the age of 3 years, and yet in the production experiment they made
many errors, similar to those observed in spontaneous utterances. Here then,
there is a clear difference between production and comprehension, which sup-
ports those who have established distinct models for the two processes (e.g.
Schlesinger, 1977). Such models have supporting evidence from other sources:
Deutsch and Jarvella (1983) in a series of experiments have indicated some sig-
nificant differences between the two processes. The English children here are
clearly aware of the concept of gender, and this concept is associated with the
linguistic forms when these forms have to be interpreted. When the children
have to use this information to make a choice as to the person referred to, they
can abstract the information correctly. In the process of production, however,
the pronoun rarely carries a functional load clarifying reference solely on the
basis of gender; reference is usually clear from contextual or other linguistic
information, so that the child is not pressured into making this distinction
clear in production. In German, the child has, by the age of three, been pro-
ducing gender-marked forms for a longer period, since marking occurs on ar-
Implications for Explanatory Theories in Child Language Acquisition 109
ticles, adjectives etc. so that at this age, production is not behind comprehen-
sion.
In conclusion, it has been shown that German 3- and 4-year-old children are in
advance of English children of the same age in their production of gender-
marked pronouns, based on the natural gender rule. Some formal properties
of the pronoun forms, the fact that German children are exposed to the whole
gender system from an early age, and the importance of the rule in adult usage
would appear to facilitate the perception of this regularity in the system and
the production of the related forms. In English, only pronouns are marked for
gender, and these are learned later than articles and adjectives, which in Ger-
man are also marked for gender. Thus, El'glish children are confronted with a
system for which they have to find a regularity later than. German children.
This reduced contact with the system, together with some formal difficulties,
can explain the later mastering of the forms.
Considering acquisition within each language, there is only experimental
evidence from the English children that the unmarked forms, that is the mas-
culine, may be learned before the marked, that is feminine, forms. The Ger-
man children are already performing at too high a level for this to be observ-
able. In the English children of age 3, the sex of the child appears to facilitate
acquisition of the corresponding form: Girls learn feminine forms first, and
boys, masculine forms. Again, this was not observable for the German chil-
dren.
These results show that the structure of the system to be learned in terms
of the extent of the system, the parts of speech involved and the activity the
child is engaged in, comprehension or production, affects the acquisition of
the marking of concept. The concept of gender is present early, but language
cannot be so tightly bound to cognition that the presence of a concept will
assure rapid acquisition of all the corresponding linguistic structures.
Implications for Explanatory Theories in Child Language
Acquisition
The Interaction of Formal and Semantic Rules in Acquisitiou
There are two opposing theoretical standpoints in theories of language acqui-
sition which place different emphasis on the role of semantics and that of for-
malar structural principles in acquisition. According to the principles of ac-
quisition formulated by Siobin (1973; 1986b) or by the support of the 'seman-
tic primacy' principle (e.g. van der Geest, 1978; Gleitman, 1981), a regularity
in the language which has its basis in meaning will be acquired before formal
principles which are within the language system only. The importance of
semantics in the first instance is formulated by Slobin in terms of an operating
principle which deals with the analysis of function words or segments:
OP-FUNCTORS: If a speech segment remains uninterpreted after the estab-
lishment of content words and routines, try to map it onto an accessible
grammaticizable Notion that is relevant to the meaning of adjacent referen-
tial units in the situation in which the speech segments occur. If you succeed,
store such a nonreferential relational unit "functor" with its meaning and
its placement in relation to associated linguistic units and their meanings.
(Slobin, 1986b)
The grammaticizable notions to which Slobin refers are seen as the limited
set of concepts which languages make use of in their closed class of grammati-
cal forms. The implication is that these notions are more easily accessible for
the child. It is not clear what the arguments for the privileged cognitive status
of these notions might be, unless like Pinker, it is assumed they are innate:
The child is assumed to encode a small number of semantically identifiable
and linguistically relevant features of each utterance, such as its tense and
aspect, and the number, person, gender, animacy, humanness, and the like,
of each of its arguments. The child is assumed to know innately that this
small set of features is the linguistically relevant subset of the many features
that can be perceived to be true of the referents of an utterance, for instance,
temperature, colour, size, etc. (1982, p. 687)
The argumeuts for their existence come mainly from comparative grammar
(Talmy, 1978, 1983, 1986) and from cross-linguistic investigation. Natural
gender would apparently be one of these notions which could be abstracted
from the meaning of the nouu in order to analyze the articles or pronouns
marked for gender.
Slobin explicitly subordinates formal rules to semantic rules in the formu-
lation of the following principle:
OP: MORPHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS (b). If you cannot find semantic
grounds for choice of functor, check the citation forms of the associated
words or stems and try to differentiate them on systematic phonological
grounds. If you succeed, set up a paradigm in which choice of functor is
ditioned by the phonological shape of the citation form. (1986b)
In relation to geuder, such an approach makes the prediction that, for ex-
ample, the natural gender rule, if present in a particular language, would be
acquired before any phonetic rules. Kopcke's hierarchy of gender assignment
rules, if seen as transferable to acquisition, would also order semantic rules
before other kinds of rules (see pp. 34 - 36) in accordance with the semantic
primacy viewpoint.
To prove this hypothesis, it would have to be shown that the child always
learns semantically based rules more quickly than formal rules independent of
the structure of the language concerned. To disprove the semantic primacy hy-
pothesis, on the other hand, it would suffice for the child to learn some formal
rules prior to semautic rules where both exist in a particular language.
Pinker (1982, p. 678) presents a weaker form of the semantic primacy hy,
pothesis which he calls "semantic boot-strapping". According to this hypothe-
sis, a classification is begun on semantic grounds and extended in the light of
further evidence to formal principles. It appears impossible to describe the da-
ta which would be conclusive evidence that formal rules are learned before se-
mautic rules are correctly applied. The possibility cannot be excluded that the
semantic notions have helped the child start to look for regularities, but that
the formal principles immediately dominate. In other words, the semantic
boot-strapping need not be observable. Although the boot-strapping explana-
tion is plausible, under close scrutiny it is so weak that it becomes uninterest-
ing.
As discussed above (p. 62), Maratsos and Chalkley (1980) argue against
the notion of semantic primacy. They maintain that semantic rules together
withdistributional patterns, their "semantic-distributional patterns", are used
by children to build up the notion of geuder. They argue that children can
quickly learn such patterns and by hearing one term of the pattern can induce
the other related forms. They write:
We conclude that children find it natural to define the formal units for a
pattern according partly to the appearance of terms in
other distributional-semantic patterns. Such abilities suit them well for
mulating the generalizations implicit in human languages. (1980, p. 151)
Maratsos and Chalkley appear to claim that it is as easy for a child to learn a
gender.system which has arbitrary assignment of gender as it is to learn a sys-
tem based on semantic rules.
The evidence from acquisition presented in the preceding sections indi-
cates that neither standpoint is absolutely correct. The natural gender rule, as
marked in the personal pronouus in subject fuuction,"was seen to be well es-
tablished in German-speaking children at the age of3 years. Furthermore, in
this early stage of the acquisition of gender, German children appear to be us-
ing a phonetic rule (-e--+fem.) in the production of feminine gender nouns. It
caunot be clearly shown that the acquisition of the semantic rule precedes the
acquisition of the formal rule; rather, the acquisition of the two seems to run
parallel.
It is questionable whether one can talk of the acquisition of the natural
gender rule in absolute terms, since, as was seen from the experimental evi-
dence, acquisition was well advanced for personal pronouns in subject func-
tion, but in the dative and possessive function, errors were still being made at
the age of 3.
These findings also go against the claim of Maratsos and Chalkley that
patterns are easily acquired. It was shown that the definite article was correct
in its form more quickly than the indefinite article; as has just been described,
the function of the pronouns appears to affect the speed of acquisition. In a
gender system as complex as that of the German language, it apparently takes
a considerable amount of time to establish the relationship between the forms
occurring with different nouns, that is, the concept of gender paradigms.
The order of acquisition of rules for gender assignment apparently de-
pends on the status of the rule in the gender system. The first phonetic rule to
be learned in German is the rule with the greatest scope and proportionally the
fewest exceptions. The semantic rule of natural gender is also learned early for
certain forms; it is also a rule which has a considerable salience for adult Ger-
man speakers and comparatively few exceptions.
Evidence from other languages which had previously been used to sup-
port one or the other theoretical standpoint can be interpreted in these terms.
So, for example, Clark (1986) reports that Spanish-speaking children quickly
learn to categorize nouns according to the endings of the noun, -0 (masculine)
and -a (feminine), and to associate these with a particular form of the article.
They will also regularize nouns which do not fit this pattern, so for example
making una flor into una 'flora. Hebrew (Berman, 1986) also has a fairly
clear system of formal gender marking in its two genders. Levy (1983) reports
that these formal rules are learned before the natural gender rule. The phonet-
ic regularities are also clear in Polish, discussed in an earlier section (p. 83),
and are learned early.
Tucker, Lambert, Rigault and Segalowitz (1968) and Tucker, Lambert
and Rigault (1977) found a range of phonetic properties of French words
which correlate with a particular gender. They reported that young French
children used these rules in gender assignment. Clark (1986) also reports that
French children use these properties to select the correct form of the article by
age 3. No details are given, however, of any order of acquisition.
It can be concluded, therefore, that where languages have phonetic rules
which have a large scope and a comparatively low number of exceptions, these
rules will be learned early. This need not, however, be interpreted as being due
to a greater salience of formal rules over semantic rules in general, but rather
to the clarity of a particular rule over another.
Karmiloff-Smith's work (1979, pp. 148 -169) has been interpreted as
showing that phonetic rules dominate semantic rules (e.g. Pinker, 1985). She
conducted detailed experiments with gender assignment in French nouns, us-
ing experimental situations in which there was a conflict between the natural
gender of the referent (for example, an obviously female Martian figure) and
the invented name for this figure in terms of its phonetic ending (in this case
bicron, where the ending -on is associated with masculine gender). She found
that 4-year-old children closely followed the phonetic cue in their selection of
the article, but they used the semantic principle in selecting the pronoun. She
also found that the children could make use of the semantic information in
selecting the article if no phonetic cue was available. It seems as though, for
the endings she tested, the phonetic rules are dominant over the semantic rule.
This possibly indicates a difference in the basis of acquisition for articles and
for pronouns.
It is necessary to qualify Karmiloff-Smith's results with the phrase 'for
the endings she tested', since it is not clear that the dominance of phonetic
rules over semantic rules would always hold. On detailed examination of the
actual test words, there emerges even here a considerable variation in the
strength of the association between the endings and the gender, which is relat-
ed to the number of words the rule can apply to in the adult lexicon. For ex-
ample, the ending on [3] (excluding [j 3] is associated with masculine gender in
88"70 of the cases; the ending [Il] is associated with feminine gender in only
52"70 of the cases (the figures here are based on the analysis of Tucker et aI.,
1977). The first ending is present in 722 nouns, whereas the second occurs in
only 272. Therefore, it would seem for th,e adult speaker that the first rule has
greater clarity than the second. The point to be made here is that it cannot be
claimed absolutely that phonetic rules dominate semantic rules, but it has
been shown that they can dominate.
The evidence from Icelandic (Mulford, 1985), which has been discussed
above, showed an early acquisition of the natural gender rule, although pho-
netic rules exist in the language. Mulford accounts for this by the fact that the
phonetic rules in Icelandic are made less clear through the plurifunctionality
of the endings; for example, -a marks feminine nominative singular and weak
masculine oblique singular.
Mulford argues that the different results which have been obtained for dif-
ferent languages, that is, the dominance of formal rules over semantic rules or
vice versa, can be explained by the varying regularities in the languages con-
cerned, particularly by the varying correlations between noun endings and
gender. She writes: "The acquisition data suggest that there are differences in
the strengths and patternings of these correlations ... that may be important
enough to have major consequences for the very nature of early gender
systems" (1985, p. 451).
In conclusion, an interaction between semantic and formal rules must be
postulated which depends not on the categorization of the rules as semantic or
formal, but rather on the relative 'clarity' of the rules in question within the
gender system. The absolute dominance of semantic or phonetic principles at
any stage cannot be upheld independently of the kind of linguistic structures
to be acquired. This conclusion can obviously be extended to acquisition of
other systems within language. Predictions on the order and speed of
acquisition would then be based on the notion of 'clear rule', which will be
briefly discussed in the following section.
The Relative Notion of 'Clear Rnle'
There are several factors which can determine how clear a rule or gender-
assigning principle may be in the system to be learned by the child. Firstly, as
mentioned above, there are categorial rules of gender assignment which allow
no exceptions and which, in the adult system, are affected in their clarity only
by the number of nouns to which the rule applies. Associative gender assign-
ment rules, that is, those where groups of nouns with a common formal or
semantic property are associated with a certain gender but where considerable
numbers of exceptions exist, are affected by both the scope of the rule in the
lexicon and the proportional number of exceptions. The influence of these
two factors emerged clearly in the consideration of phonetic rules in German.
Another possible factor which has not been explored in this set of studies is
the status of the lexical items involved. As discussed earlier (pp. 29 - 30),
Zubin and Kopcke (1983) suggested that exceptions to rules are more easily
tolerated in the core and periphery. The status of these exceptions would then
interact with the other factors such as the number of exceptions.
Factors based on linguistic description contribute towards defining the
clarity of a rule in terms of the number of items affected by a rule etc. The
functions associated with a rule and the status of rules in adults' usage are also
important factors. As was discussed in earlier chapters, the natural gender
rule in German would not appear to be particularly 'clear' on the basis of the
number of items affected and the number of exceptions to the rule. However,
it is related to additional functions, and adults show that their language usage
is affected by the rule, thus according it a higher status in the input to the
child.
In discussing the notion of 'clear rule' related to acquisition, additional
factors pertain which are related to the lexicon of the learner. The learner's
ability to perceive a rule will depend not only on the frequency, number of
exceptions etc. which exist in the language system per se, but also on the
number of pertinent items in the learner's vocabulary at anyone point in time'
and their status in his or her vocabulary. It was shown for example that a 3-
year-old German child's vocabulary contained a relatively large number of
feminine gender nouns ending in - e; correspondingly, the phonetic rule
relating to - e was learned early. Items related to other phonetic rules were
minimally represented at that particular age; the rules will therefore be
'unclear' at that time. This aspect can also be subject to individual variation
according to the lexical items learned by a particular child.
The relativity of this notion of clear rule means that predictions about
acquisition will look quite different for languages of different structures. It is
not the intention, however, to claim that predictions about acquisition can
only be made for individual languages and that no universals of language
acquisition exist. Rather, it is the intention that postulation of acquisition
universals should be formulated in such a way as to account for differences in
structures and systems. Work on language universals is moving steadily in this
direction [compare the far more detailed proposals of Slobin (1986b) with the
more global hypotheses of Slobin (1973)] on the basis of broad cross-linguistic
evidence.
In both the naturalistic observational data and experimental studies, it was
shown that, in their acquisition of the formal rules of gender assignment in
German, children first lear!) the rules which affect the largest part of the
vocabulary, have the fewest exceptions and are clearly represented in the
child's lexicon. When the first gender-marked forms appear, that is, the
definite and indefinite articles, few errors are made. The complexity of the
gender paradigms through case marking has little effect on the acquisition of
gender. The fewest errors are made with feminine nouns, possibly because of
the help of the phonetic rules. Articles with masculine and neuter nouns are
also frequently omitted. The feminine gender form of the definite article die is
most commonly used in error; this may be due to an association with the
plural article. It was shown, however, that a knowledge of plural morphology
does not precede the acquisition of gender.
German children show the ability to build up distributional patterns relat-
ing the forms within the gender paradigms, but this occurs over a considerable
amount of time. Acquisition is affected by the different case forms and the
different parts of speech on which gender marking occur.
A comparison of the acquisition of the animacy rule in English and
German has shown that animacy is a significant factor in both languages,
despite the different status of the neuter forms in both languages. The
observational data have shown that the rule is acquired early in both
languages. In an experimental study it was established that English children
associate it strongly with inanimacy and only gradually allow it to take over
the common gender function. This effect can be related to the principle of one
form-one function in acquisition, but can also be related to input. Despite
their early use of the he instead of it, children are still in the process of learn-
ing the personification rule at the age of 9 - 10 years; rules linked to stylistic
devices would therefore appear to be learned late. German children seem to
associate neuter gender with inanimacy by implication, in that they avoid
neuter gender for animate nouns, particularly in their selection of pronouns.
Around 9 - 10 years, the grammatical gender rules are complied with abso-
lutely.
. An experimental study of the acquisition of the natural gencte"r rule showed
that German children are in advance of English children at the ages of 3 and 4
years in producing gender-marked pronouns. Some formal properties of the
pronoun forms and the exposure to the gender system from an early age
would seem to facilitate the learning of the rule. The case marking of the
pronoun also affects acquisition, as does the situation, that is, whether the
child is asked to comprehend a gender-marked form or produce it. There is
evidence (observable only in the English children, since the German children
already perform at too high a level) that unmarked forms (masculine) are
learned before marked (feminine). For the English children, the child's own
sex facilitates acquisition of the same sex pronoun at age 3.
When the acquisition of formal and semantic rules in German was
examined in respect of the interaction of the two rule types on the basis of
above results, it was found that there was no evidence to support theories
which claim the greater salience of semantic rules over formal rules or vice
versa. Rules seem to be acquired in an order determined by the clarity of the
rule in the particular language system. Clarity of the rule can be defined by
factors such as the scope of the rule, the number of exceptions to the rule, the
number of examples of the rule in the child's lexicon etc. The formulation of
language universals must take such language-specific principles more into
account.
CHAPTER 5
Psychological Gender
There was a mirror behind her and another behind me and she was watching
herself in the one behind me, forgetting about the other one in which I could
see her face, see her watching the back of my head with pure dissimulation.
That's why nature is "she" and prQgress is "he". Nature made the grape af
w
bor but progress made the mirror. '
William Faulkner, Sanctuary
Sie (die Vernunft) ist weiblich, sie empfangt bloG, erzeugt nicht. Es ist nicht
zufallig, dan sie, sowohl in den Lateinischen, wie den Germanischen Spra
M
chen, als weiblich auf tritt, der Verstand hingegen als mannlich. 32
Language and Thought
Schopenhauer, Ober die vierfache Wurzel des
Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde
The effect language has on the speaker's perception of objects and events has
long been a subject of debate. Sapir (1944) expressed the view that language
influences the way in which the speaker perceives the world, in what is known
as linguistic relativity. This idea was expressed more strongly by Whorf (1952,
1956), who wrote:
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native l.<;lnguages. The catego
M
ries and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find
there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world
is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized
by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.
We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we
do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way
- an agreement that holds through our speech community and is codified in
the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and un
M
32 Translation: 'It (reason) is feminine; it only receives and conceives, it does not pro-
duce. It is not coincidental that the word in both Romance and Germanic languages
is feminine, whereas the word for intellect is masculine' .
118 Psychological Gender
stated one, but ITS TERMS ARE ABSOLUTELY OBLIGATORY; we can-
not talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of
data which the agreement decrees. (1956, pp. 213-214)
According to this hypothesis, classifications which are present in language
will lead the speaker to classify the world in that way. This 'linguistic deter-
minism' has been argued against (e.g. Bach, 1968) and also dismissed as a
non-question (Coseriu, 1982). Considerable evidence against it has also been
presented from reanalysis of the work of Whorf himself on the Hopi Indians
(Gipper, 1972) and in the area of cultural universals (e.g. Pinxten, 1976). The
weaker form of the hypothesis, which Whorf himself also formulated, claims
that structures of language do not determine thinking, but exert some influ-
ence on the speakers.
Evidence on this question of linguistic relativity is conflicting. Brown and
Lenneberg (1954) claimed for example that the system of lexical classification,
as exemplified in English colour terms, systematically influenced memory.
Other experimental evidence indicates that the reverse of the Sapir-Wharf hy-
pothesis is true, that cognition influences language. For example, the experi-
ments with colour identification conducted by Heider-Rosch (Heider, 1972;
Heider & Olivier, 1972) show that the number of colour terms in a particular
language does not affect the ability to remember colours. A language which
only has two colours (Dani, New Guinea) does not apparently produce a dif-
ference in the way focal colours are stored in memory for the speakers of that
language compared with the speakers of a language like English, which has
more colour names.
Bach (1968) put forward linguistic arguments against the Sapir-Wharf hy-
pothesis. He claimed on the basis of his analysis of noun phrases that there ex-
ists a universal system of base rules which can express any conceptual content;
variation in the particular lexical items is therefore irrelevant. Even if one
agrees with Bach's linguistic analysis, it still leaves open the question of the
psychological status of concepts expressed by different linguistic means.
After reviewing the evidence for and against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,
Clark and Clark conclude;
The main thrust of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that differences in lan-
guages affect thought. Because one speaks English, Japanese, or Apache,
certain concepts are difficult, perhaps impossible, to deal with. So far, how-
ever, no convincing examples of these differences have turned up. On the
contrary, languages can apparently be stretched and adapted to fit the needs
of virtually any group of experts. What this suggests is that language differ
w
ences reflect the culture, and not the reverse. (1977, p. 557)
The area of gender has been used to investigate the Sapir-Wharf hypothe-
sis by testing the assumption that languages with different gender systems will
influence the perception of objects differently in terms of sex-related attri-
butes. Thus, it is postulated that a language having a system of grammatical
Language and Thought 119
gender which reflects the natural gender rule but is extended to nouns whose
referents have no natural gender will, according to the Sapir-Wharf hypothe-
sis, affect the perception of those referents. Thus, masculine gender nouns
will be seen as male and feminine gender nouns as female. Obviously, when a
speaker uses a masculine gender form with a noun, it is not the desire to ex-
press the concept of male sex in association with the referent which determines
this usage. Sapir himself wrote:
It goes without saying that a Frenchman has no clear sex notion in his mind
when he speaks of un arbre ("awmasculine tree") or of une pomme ("awfemiw
nine apple") ... The primary ideas of sex ... have become diluted by form-
analogy and by extensions Into the relational sphere, the concepts indicated
being now so vaguely delimited that it is rather the tyranny of usage than the
need of their concrete expression that sways us in the selection of this or that
form. (1949, pp. 97-98)
It is nevertheless possible that the gender classification system influences
the perception of the referent in a situation in which the speaker is called upon
t6 attribute a sex or sexual characteristics to the referent.
An important question here is whether such a hypothesis is testable. If it is
found that there is a match between the grammatical gender of a noun and the
sex attributes of the referent, it is possible that the gender influences the per-
ception of the attributes, but it is also possible that the assignment of gender
at the point when the word is first classified in the language is determined by
those attributes (see pp. 6 - 8 for a discussion of the semantic theories of the
origin of gender). If there is a mismatch, this shows that grammatical gender
does not influence the perception of attributes. It is still possible, however,
that the original assignment of gender was made on the basis of different attri-
butes and that these attributes have changed owing to cultural influences. On
the basis of data from one language, the hypothesis is only disprovable.
If data are compared from two languages which allocate gender different-
ly to the same set of nouns and it is found that the speakers perceive the sex at-
tributes similarly, clearly, language does not influence the perception of attri-
butes. If they perceive the sex attributes in terms of the gender of their own
language, that is, the sex attributes are perceived differently by the speakers of
the two languages, it would seem more plausible to argue that the language
classification has influenced perception, but it is not proven. It is possible that
cultural differences determined the assignment of gender in the first instance,
hence the different gender allocation. Evidence, independent of language,
would have to be brought to argue for the latter explanation, but it is not pos-
sible to disprove it either. Absolute proof of either explanation would seem
impossible to find.
Despite misgivings about the absolute provability of the Sapir-Whorf hy-
pothesis, a comparison will be made of the sexual connotations or psychologi-
cal gender of nouns in English and German in order to explore the possible re-
lationships that may exist between the psychological and grammatical gender.
An Investigation of the Interrelationship of Grammatical
Gender and Sex Assignment in English and German
In earlier discussion (pp. 53 - 55), the association between grammatical and
natural gender in German adults was shown to be strong: In cases of conflict,
the adults frequently choose the pronoun conforming to natural gender; the
natural gender rule also influences metaphorical language use. Children in ac-
quisition learn the natural gender rule quickly. This strong association be-
tween grammatical gender and natural gender in German would lead to the
hypothesis that German speakers will be affected in some way in their percep-
tion of objects by grammatical gender. Zubin and Kopcke (1983) have in fact
argued that masculine and feminine characteristics of the referent have
influenced gender assignment in the -mut compounds. The possibility that
such a claim is correct will be explored in the following studies.
In English, the prediction must be related to the predominant use of the
masculine pronoun to refer to common gender animates and inanimates in an
'animated' context. That is, those nouns referred to in such contexts as he
should be perceived as male, the few that are referred to as she should be per-
ceived as female.
The investigation takes at its basis the assignment of sex to inanimate ob-
jects or animals in German and English. The comparison between the lan-
guages was made under two conditions: firstly, in children's literature and,
secondly, in an experimental situation with adults and children. The assign-
ment of sex was selected as the context of the investigation, since it is assumed
that these sex assignments are determined according to properties inherent in
the object or animal, functional properties included. In an experimental task,
the focus is then on the object or animal rather than on the referring name;
this has the methodological advantage that the assignment of a sex can be ob-
tained obliquely without undue emphasis on the sex specification.
An Investigation of Sex Assignment in Children's Literature
Children's literature in English and German was analyzed for the assignment
of sex to objects and animate non-human beings. Such an analysis reflects ac-
tual usage, as opposed to assignment under experimental conditions, and so
acts a basis of comparison for experimental results. It also indicates what the
input to children may be in this dimension, which can influence their percep-
tion of the referents. Fifty children's stories in each language were analyzed,
being selected randomly from the library of the school or local children's li-
brary. These stories had to be written by native speakers; translations were
avoided, since sex assignment could be influenced by the native language of
the author. Only those stories were selected for analysis which contained the
assignment of a sex indicated by giving a name to the referent; pronominal
reference on the basis of grammatical rule was not included.
An Investigation of the Interrelationship of Grammatical Gender 121
Table 5.1. Sex assignment in English children's stories
Referent noun Example of noun Sex assigned
Animacy Sex feature Male Female Total
Inanimate Aeroplane 7 1
8 .
Animate Common and/or male Dog, cockerel 22 0 22
Common and/or female Cow, vixen 13 9 22
Common Elephant 98 23 121
Total 140 33 173
Note. Fifty English children's stories containing an anthropomorphization of an ani-
mal or object were analyzed for the distribution of sex assignment in the cases of
anthropomorphization. The nouns referring to the animal or object were classified ac-
cording to the features of animacy and' sex;,
The results of the analysis for English and German are given in Tables 5.1
and 5.2. The nouns are categorized according to the features of animacy and
sex for German and English; the German nouns are also categorized accord-
ing to grammatical gender. A group of nouns in both languages function both
as a common gender term and as a sex-specific term (see pp. 20 - 23), for ex-
ample, der Bar (masc.) 'bear' in German or dog in English; these are listed to-
gether with those nouns which are only sex specific.
In English (Table 5.1), quite clearly the majority of objects and animals
(81 "70) are given male sex. This matches the dominance of the masculine pro-
noun he as the common gender pronoun for animals in lively style and in per-
sonification (see pp. 20 - 26). It also fits in with the finding that adults used
predominantly the pronoun he in the animated stylistic context (see pp.
95 - 97). In the literature, an almost equal number of male and female sex
assignments were found for cats (6: 5) and mice (8: 5), which again matches
the results of the earlier study (pp. 95 - 97), in which cat was referred to more
often with the feminine pronoun (9: 39) and mouse almost equally (26: 22)
with both pronouns.
These findings from children's literature also match the results of an in-
vestigation of sex stereotypes conducted by Gill (1967) in connection with the
Rorschach test in personality assessment. He tested adult and 11- to 12-year-
old English speakers, asking them to attribute sex directly to the noun. He
tested 50 animal names and found that 73% were designated as male, com-
pared with 81 % in the children's literature here. He also found that mouse
was perceived as feminine by the adult speakers, but as male by the younger
girls.
In German (Table 5.2), sex is predominantly assigned according to the
grammatical gender of the referent noun. So, for example, frogs are assigned
male sex corresJlonding to the masculine gender of Frosch, whereas a dragon-
Table 5.2. Sex assignment in German children's stories
Referent noun Example of noun Sex assigned
Gender Animacy Sex feature Male Female Total
Masculine Inanimate Bus 'bus' 2 0 2
Animate Common and/or Bar 'bear' 38 2 40
male
Common Frosch 'frog' 23 5 28
Total 63 7 70
Feminine Inanimate Schere 'scissors' 0 0 0
Animate Common and/or Gans 'goose' 10 18 28
female
Common Libelle 'dragonfly' 5 6
Total 11 23 34
Neuter Inanimate Auto 'car' 0 0 0
Animate Common Huhn 'chicken' 13 9 22
Total 13 9 22
Total 87 39 126
Note. Fifty German children's stories containing an anthropomorphization of an ani-
mal or object were analyzed for the distribution of sex assignment in the cases of
anthropomorphization. The nouns referring to the animal or object were classified
according to grammatical gender, animacy and sex.
fly is made female corresponding to the feminine gender of Libel/e. The neu-
ter gender nouns are split between male and female. Overall, the majority of
referents are made male (69"70). This mnst be seen, however, in association
with the greater number of masculine gender nouns, although, of the referents
of the feminine gender nouns, a greater proportion are assigned male sex com-
pared with the proportion of referents of the masculine gender nouns given
female sex. A general male trend can therefore be detected.
In conclusion, the distribution of sex is linked to the grammatical gender
of the referent nouns in both English and German. Grammatical gender in
English is defined here as the pronoun used predominantly in 'lively' style. To
make an exact comparison between English and German with the same set of
nouns, an experimental test for the assignment of sex was devised.
Experimental Testing of Sex Assignment
Method. The sex assignment task was given to adults to test the existence of
sex stereotypes. It was also given to children to assess the development of such
stereotypes. The task was similar for adults and children in that the sex assign-
ment was camouflaged by asking the subjects first to find a name for a toy.
The set of toys represented six animate and four inanimate referents. For Ger-
man, these nouns included three of masculine gender, three of feminine gen-
der and four of neuter gender (see Table 5.3).
The adults were interviewed individually; they were presented with a writ-
ten list of the toys in their respective languages and given instructions to find a
name, real or invented, for the toy, imagining the context of a children's
story. The name had to be written in alongside the toy name. After they had
completed the task, they were asked to indicate in a separate column, whether
the toy shonld be male or female, in the cases where the name did not make
this obvious.
The children were tested individually using real toys. They were intro-
duced to the task by beginning general conversation about the toys they had at
home and then asking about any names they had for these. The experimental
toys were in a bag, and before they were presented to the child, it was ex-
plained that the toys were very upset because they did not have any names.
They did not know what to say when they spoke to one another. The child was
asked to cheer them np by finding names for them all. The toys were then pre-
sented individually, being fetched out of the bag by the experimenter and
placed on a table in front of the child. The child was first asked to identify the
toy, then to find a name and then to determine whether the toy was male or fe-
male. An excerpt from the transcripts will illustrate the procedure for English
and German.
English, Angela (7; 0):
E: Well, these poor toys haven't got any names. So what I want you to do is
find some names for them. Do you think you can do that?
Angela: Yes
E: Well, what's this then?
Angela: A ball.
E: Yes. Do you think you can find a good name?
Angela: Er, Spotty.
E: That's a good name. And is Spotty a boy or a girl?
Angela: A boy.
German, Dominic (6; 11):
E: Diese armen Spielsachen haben keinen Namen. Ich m6chte, daB Du NaM
men fUr die findest. Probieren wir mal?
Dominic: Ja.
E: Was ist dies hier?
Dominic: Ein Elefant.
E: Findest Du einen Namen?
Dominic: Hupp.
E: Und ist Hupp ein Madchen oder ein Junge?
Dominic: Ein Junge.
The toys used with the children were the same set in every case. They had 5
v

been selected so as to avoid any sex-specific features, such as colours linked
S
0
Ii,

"'0""
0\ 00 0'\ 0\ M M
with one sex or the other, ornaments etc. The question asking for sex specifi-
"''''- - -- B
cation was formulated without repeating the noun or using a pronoun so as to 1:: >.
avoid asking directly about the noun rather than the referent.

vB
"
"
v

The toys were presented in a different random order for each subject, and
M ... '"
........ \0 ....... 00 M '0'"
:
"''''-
N...-; N ......

the order of the terms boy and girl, Junge and Madchen was alternated in the
questiou asking for sex specification. The whole test was tape recorded and
!l S

0
oj
transcribed later.

" "" r-- '0
1.0 V') 0 o.n
"'''''0
- "
The English adult subjects were all native speakers of British English, 24 ---
__ ('\I_
II
0
men and 24 women, aged between 21 and 30 years of age (men, x = 24; wom-
!;',
oj "
0 >."
en, it = 23). All were resident or studying in the York area. The children be-
-

.0'"
>. v
0
oor-- O\OOMt- M ... r--

tween 5 and 11 years of age were grouped into four age groups containing 48
'"
Ol
"''''-
__ N_
" 0
{3 [j
children equally divided between the sexes. The groups had the following 'd'd
5
mean ages:

- ""
r--'Or-- \O\OO-.:j- M M r--
" "

---
__ ('\i_
S'"

1. 3:0-4:11
oj
" 0 v oj
>.
"
boys, x = 4;3
""

>.

girls, x = 4;1
I 0
__ r--
000\_00 ... .,.0
Ol
oj
r-- NN_
__ N_
-

2.5:0-6:11
boys,x = 5:10
B "
'"(j .;
girls, x = 5;10

" "
3.7:0-8;11
r-- M ('\IMo\N '0 "" _
.,;;

---
.................... -
-
oj "
boys,x = 7:11
,,"iii
oj
\:l S v
girls, x = 7;11 ;%
>.
0
'0

4.9:0-10:11 II
I 0
0""'0 r- 0'\ f'I') t- '0 '0
d
boys,x = 10;3
tl
S
Ol
'" --
__ N_
-
o "

girls, x = 10;4
" .S
E

i

.!:9

'i: "
"
All children were attending state schools or playschools in the York area and
"
is
""0'"
...... M <n M ""oj
oj

---
-_ ........ -
-

S

'" 0
"

were selected on the basis of parental consent and in order to obtain groups of . \:l

b
" "
0
0
>.
v.o
matched age and sex.
'"
...

.S
>. >.
The German adnlts were all native speakers of German, comprising 24
.0
v I 0
"'r--M l#") 00 0 on '0 M

'"
M Ol
---
__ N ......
- ;:'; "
men and 24 women, in the age range of 19 - 31 years, (men, it = 24; women, 0
-; .s.
it = 23). All were students at the University of Tiibingen who volunteered to 0

"
.go
take part in the experiment. The German children were grouped by age in the
II

oj
0 'd S
same way as the English children, with 24 boys and 24 girls in each age group.

"
" [;

0 v

The groups had the following mean ages:
0

"
" "
d
"
" .-
v
"
\:l
:5

'd u
"

5
:fi'5
"
oj
"
1. 3:0-4:11 0 Z
'"
boys,x = 4;1

:
8 '"
girls, x = 4;6 ..;
"
2.5:0-6:11
on

o

;..'E. ..... "
'"
.",
boys,x = 6;1

u
"'- >.

0 0

0
:i: .- 0
girls, x = 5;11
"'
"'
0l",0l

126
3. 7;0- 8;11
boys, X = 8;0
girls, x = 7;11
4.9;0-10;11
boys,x = 10;1
girls, x = 10;3
All children were attending kindergarten or primary school in the Tiibingen
area and were selected on the basis of parental consent in order to obtain
groups of matched age and sex.
Results and Discussion. The results for the German subjects are shown in Ta-
ble 5.3 and for the English subjects in Table 5.4. The table shows the number
of responses assigning male sex to the toys; the maximum number of re-
sponses was 24. By implication, the remaining number indicates the selection
of female sex. The toys are grouped in Table 5.3 according to the grammatical
gender of the German noun referring to the toy; the same order is kept in Ta-
ble 5.4 for purposes of comparison.
Within each language group, the results were analyzed using a three-way
chi-square statistic for each age group. The null hypothesis was that there
would be an equal division between the choice of male and female sex. A com-
parison was made between the gender of the noun and the sex selected for the
toy. In German, the grammatical gender is clearly defined; in English, the
Table 5.4. Assignment of sex to toys by English subjects
Toy Responses (maximum = 24)
3-4 years 5-6 years 7 - 8 years 9 -10 years Adult
Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Men Women
Bear 20 12 19 13 22 17 19 19 22 23
Elephant 16 12 14 12 18 13 20 14 19 17
Ball 17 14 20 13 14 18 18 19 22 12
Horse 13 8 14 6 12 12 11 14 19 15
Pig 17 14 16 11 16 19 19 15 20 15
Car 20 13 20 11 19 21 22 18 16 21
Book 21 15 22 16 16 17 18 15 16 13
Cat 6 3 5 4 10 3 4 3 8 1
Mouse 11 5 16 6 8 9 11 6 19 7
Clock 16 10 16 9 17 14 16 16 20 22
Note. English adults and children (24 in each age/sex group) were asked to assign a
name, and thereby a sex, to ten different toys. The results were presented in terms of
the number of assignments to male sex. The nouns are listed in the same order as for
German (Table 5.3) for purposes of comparison.
gender of the noun was defined according to the use of sex-marked pronouns
as taken from use in lively style (see pp. 95 - 97). In this study, adult speakers
had used the feminine pronoun for cat and mouse and the masculine pronoun
for the other nouns tested. The sex of the subjects was also a variable in the
analysis.
The sex of the subjects was a clear influence in the younger subjects. In
the youngest English children (groups 3 - 4 and 5 - 6 years), the boys made a
significantly high choice of male sex for the masculine nouns, and the girls
made a significantly high choice of female sex for the feminine nouns. The 7-
to 8-year-olds made a significantly high choice of female sex for the feminine
nouns, boys and girls alike. In the next age group, the boys made a significant-
ly high number of male sex choices for masculine nouns and female sex
choices for feminine nouns; the girls make a significantly high number of fe-
male choices for the feminine nouns. An analysis of the gender:..matching
choices across the age group of English 'children shows a significant interac-
tion with age, the matching choices increasing with age (x2 = 27.15;
p <0.001). This effect is represented graphically in Figure 5.1.
As in the English language subjects, the youngest German boys (groups
3 - 4 and 5 - 6 years) made more choices of male sex for masculine nouns, and
x
w
m
100
w 80
"0
E
60
E
c
rn
c
m
d
a 40
ru
rn
d
C
20
'"
0..
Key: a-a English male
6---6 English female
.-. German male
0---0 German female
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
_
_ ---a--- a---"1
a- .'= :::::::::::::: =.--1
______ ,,6--------6--1
. /
_-_0----/.:.--0--------0---1
__ -" I
0- """ I
6---- ____
6
" I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
-'
I
1--"
t--'
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

Age of subjects
Fig. 5.1. Selection of male sex for toys in German and English adults and children.
English and German adults and children (24 in each language/age/sex group) were
asked to assign a name, and thereby a sex, to ten different toys. The assignment of male
sex to the toys is shown here as a percentage in order to compare the two language
groups and to show the influence of the subjects' own sex and age
the German girls made significantly more choices of female sex for feminine
nouns. For the next two age groups of children and for the adult subjects,
male and female subjects made significantly more choices of male sex for mas-
culine nouns and female sex for feminine nouns. The gender-matching choices
interact with the age of the subjects significantly (;(2= 42.97; p<O.OOl), as
can be seen from Figure 5.1.
Age, sex and toy can therefore be seen to interact significantly in both lan-
guage groups (see Figure 5.1). There is a significant difference between the be-
haviour of male and female subjects in both English and German. The youn-
ger children assign roles according to their own sex more than the older chil-
dren and adults. This tendency is stronger in the English children than in the
German children. The difference between male and female subjects remains
across ail age groups. In the English children, this difference is not significant
for the 7- and 8-year-olds, but increases again in the next age group and again
in the adults. It cannot be assumed that the progression is linear from the old-
est children tested to the adults as puberty could affect sex assignment signifi-
cantly. The graph indicates this break by a hiatus.
There is a significant effect of the sex assigned and the individual toy. In
German, this effect is related to the grammatical gender of the noun referring
to the toy. Taking into consideration the influence of the subject's own sex, it
can be seen that, across all age groups, the feminine gender nouns were related
to a predominant choice of female sex for the corresponding toy; the mascu-
line gender nouns were related to a predominant choice of male sex for the
corresponding toy. This effect is represented graphically in Figure 5.2, from
which it can be seen that the association of sex and gender increases with age.
Among the neuter gender nouns, it might be expected that the choice
would be split equally between male and female sex, but, for the nouns tested
here at least, the predominant choice was for male sex for the corresponding
referent. The one exception was found among the female adults, who more
frequently chose female sex for the pig.
This result indicates quite clearly that, for German speakers, the choice of
sex is related to the grammatical gender of the referring noun. Other factors
must be relevant, however, since the neuter nouns are also clearly associated
with a particular sex in the corresponding toys. It is likely that attributes of the
referents are influential here. The question then remains whether the attri-
butes of the referents of the masculine and feminine gender nouns correspond
to the grammatical gender. If this were so, the relation found above could be
explained on the basis of attributes, not grammatical gender. This will be ex-
plored in a further study.
The English subjects made the majority of toys male. The women made
the cat and the mouse females, while the men made only the cat female. The
children all made the cat femaie; the monse was also made female by all except
the 5- to 6-year-old boys. This assignment of sex corresponds to the pronoun
use found in the studies reported earlier (pp. 95 - 97). Here, cat and to a lesser
extent mouse, were referred to with the pronoun she. Taking this pronoun use
An Investigation of Interrelationship of Grammatical Gender

ru
.c
u
a
100
E 80
x
ru
w
ru
ru
.c

ru a
mu
60
.2:g 20
:c E
u E
" a
ru "
0.. m
feminine gender nouns
D masculine gender nouns
__ __
mase. fem. mase. fem. mase. fem. mase. fem. mase. fem.
3-4 5-6 7-8 9-10 Adult
129
Fig. 5.2. Sex assignment and grammatical gender. German adults and children' (48 in
each age group) were asked to assign a name, and thereby a sex, to ten different toys.
The results are presented here in terms of the percentage of sex assignments which
matched the grammatical gender of the noun (masculine and feminine only)
as equivalent to grammatical gender, there is a clear relation between the gen-
der of the pronoun used and the sex given to the corresponding toy, as in Ger-
man, although this pronoun use is not fixed as is grammatical gender in Ger-
man.
The use of the pronouns in English was established by examining actual
language use rather than by applying generally formulated rules. According to
such rules, the pronoun he should have been used in all cases, with the excep-
tion of she for the item car. This was not the case, however: she was used for
cat and sometimes for mouse, but not for car. The question then arises for
English (not for German, since the grammatical gender is fixed) of whether
the pronoun use is to be related to attributes of the referent 33. If this is the
case, the sex assignment and pronoun use may only be indirectly linked to
each other through the common factor of the attributes of the referent.
If grammatical gender alone determined the choice of sex, it would be ex-
pected that the masculine gender nouns would have close to 1000/0 selection of
33 According to Freudian symbolism, the car, as earlier the horse, is perceived as a
symbol of male sexuality (Faraday, 1973). This could be related to the choice of
male sex, which then must be seen as being based on attributes of the referent.
male sex and feminine gender nouns 100"10 selection of female sex. In Ger-
man, the neuter nouns should be equally split between male and female sex.
This is quite clearly not the case. In both languages, there is a gradation in the
perception of maleness/femaleness. For German speakers, the bear, elephant,
horse and car have a high male rating; for English speakers, the bear and ball
have a high male rating. For German speakers, the cat, mouse and clock have
a high female rating; for English speakers, cat and, in some cases, mouse have
a high female rating. The perception of maleness/femaleness is comparable
across the age groups in both languages. If the nouns are ranked in a hierarchy
of the most male to the least male, there is a significant correlation across all
age and sex groups in the ranking (according to Kendall's Coefficient of Con-
cordance, German W = 0.645, p<O.OOI; English W = 0.654, p<O.OOI). This
relative perception cannot be attributed to grammatical gender alone. The
attributes of the referent must also be influencing the subjects' behaviour.
This factor was investigated in the following experiment.
The Testing of Sex Attributes
Method. In order to investigate the attributes of the toys in relation to male-
ness and femaleness, German and English adults were asked to rate the ten
referents used in the previous study on a semantic differential test (Osgood,
Suci & Tannenbaum, 1957). The 15 attribute poles chosen were those associat-
ed with maleness and femaleness on the basis of previous research (see Osgood
et aI., 1957; HofsUitter, 1963; Gill, 1967); see Figure 5.3 for the complete list.
The items man and woman, or the German equivalents, were included in the
list to check the subjects' conformity on the selected attribute poles. The size
dimension is relevant to sex, for example, so that the poles large and small are
associated with maleness and femaleness respectively.
The subjects were asked to rate each item individually on a five-point
scale, so for example, on the
Ball
large LI - ' ~ L I L I L - - . J I small
scale, large-small, an entry in the middle box would indicate that either adjec-
tive was appropriate for the item Ball or that both adjectives were equally ap-
propriate. An entry in the extreme right-hand box would indicate that small
was highly appropriate, in the next box moderately appropriate. The items
were presented on individual sheets, in a different random order for each sub-
ject. The subjects were asked to work through the test booklet in their own
time, but on average, the test took 15 min.
The English subjects were 24 adults in the age range of 21 - 30 years of
age, comprised of 12 men and 12 women resident or studying in the area of
Manchester. The German subjects were 24 adults in the age range of 21 - 25
lief
glatt
verschwommen
warm
klein
sonft
passiv
schwach
schon
trourig
leise
rund
gel6s1
feucht
stetig
2
0 ___ 0 Frau
0-. Mann
3 5
131
Significance
of difference
hoch.
rauh
*
klar
kalt
***
gran
***
wild
*
aktiv
***
stark
***
hontich
froh
laut
***
eckig
gesponnt
***
trocken
veranderlich
Fig. 5.3. Profiles of the items Mann and Frau as rated by German male speakers. A
group of 12 male adult German speakers rated the items Mann 'man' and Frau
'woman' on a 15-pole scale where the values 1- 5 indicate the rating on a particular
polar scale. These two items were part of a larger semantic differential test
years of age, resident or studying in the area of Tiibingen. All the subjects vol-
unteered to take part and were tested individually by the author.
Results and Discussion. For the ease of presenting the analysis, the ratings at
the end of the scale associated with maleness were scored high, with 4 or 5
points, the ratings at the end of the scale associated with femaleness were
scored low, with 1 or 2 points. The middle value was 3. The full results of the
study are set out in Appendices G and H.
Firstly, the results of the test for the items man and woman, Mann and
Frau are presented in order to establish the male and female profiles for the
particular groups of subjects. The rankings are presented in graphic form in
Figures 5.3 - 5.6 comparing the profiles of man and woman for English
speakers and Mann and Frau for German speakers. The rankings are shown
individually for male and female speakers of German and English. The statis-
tical significance of the difference in rankings on individual attributes between
man and woman or between Mann and Frau, as measured on a t test, is indi-
cated on the extreme right 34.
34 A factor analysis could not be run on all the sets of data because the correlation ma-
trix was singular in a number of cases owing to the relatively small number of sub-
jects in each group. A partial presentation would be confusing; therefore, the analy-
sis will be done using correlations of the profiles.
132
lief
glatt
verschwommen
warm
klein
sanft
passiv
schwach
schon
traurig
leise
rund
gelos!
feucht
stetig
2
0---0 Frau
.--. Mann
3 4 5
hoch
rauh
klar
kalt
gran
wild
aktiv
stark
h6.nlich
froh
lout
eckig
gespannt
lrocken
Significance
of difference
**
***
veranderlich
Fig. 5.4. Profiles of the items Mann and Frau as rated by German female speakers. A
group of 12 female adult German speakers rated the items Mann 'man' and Frau
'woman' on a is-pole scale where the values 1 - 5 indicate the rating on a particular
polar scale. These two items were part of a larger semantic differential test
law
smooth
hazy
warm
little
gentle
passive
weak
beautiful
sad
quiet
round
relaxed
damp
constant
2
0- __ 0 woman
.--. man
3 4 5 Significance
of difference
high
rough
***
clear
cold
big
***
wild
***
active
***
strong
***
ugly
***
happy
noisy
*
jagged
tense
***
dry
changeable
Fig. 5.5. Profiles of the items man and woman as rated by English male speakers. A
group of 12 male adult English speakers rated the items man and woman on a 1S-pole
scale where the values 1 - S indicate the rating on a particular polar scale. These two
items were part of a larger semantic differential test
low
smooth
hazy
warm
tittle
gentle
passive
weak
beautiful
sod
quiet
round
relaxed
damp
constant
2
0---0 woman
.--. mon
3 4 5
high
rou'gh
clear
cold
big
wild
active
strong
ugly
happy
noisy
jagged
tense
dry
changeable
133
Significance
of difference
*
***
*
Fig. 5.6. Profiles of the items man and woman as rated by English female speakers. A
group of 12 female adult English speakers rated the items man and woman on a is-pole
scale where the values 1 - S indicate the rating on a particular polar scale. These two
items were part of a larger semantic differential test
When the Q-correlation value for these profiles is calculated (HofsU\tter,
1963, pp. 96-97), the profiles for man and woman or Mann and Frau ob-
tained from male speakers have an almost zero correlation (English male
speakers, Q = 0.09; German male speakers, Q = 0.085). The profiles for the
female speakers correlate positively (English female speakers, Q = 0.525; Ger-
man female speakers, Q = 0.631). The origin of these correlation values can
be determined by examining the ranking of the individual attributes in the
graphs.
As can be seen from the profiles, the rankings of both man and Mann lie
in general to the right of the equivalent rankings of woman and Frau, that is,
further towards the extreme associated with maleness. For the male German
speakers and male English speakers, there was a statistical difference between
these rankings on eight of the 15 attributes (see Figures 5.3, 5.5). For the fe-
male English and German speakers, although the rankings for man and Mann
still lie predominantly to the right of those for woman and Frau, this differ-
ence was significant in only three and two instances respectively. German and
English men judge women to be smoother, smaller, more gentle, more pas-
sive, more beautiful, quieter and more relaxed than men. For English and
German women, women are only smoother and smaller. The difference in the
amount of polarity in the profiles between male and female speakers can be
explained by the more egalitarian view of the sexes held by women of this age
group in both Germany and Great Britain. Several female subjects comment-
ed after completing the test that they deliberately rejected the "typical fe-
male stereotype". The stereotype has, however, only become weaker for
these speakers; that is, it is still equal to that of men, rather than being re-
versed.
The profiles of the German and English speakers correlated positively
with each other, male and female speakers being matched (English and Ger-
man male speakers, Q = 0.92; English and German female speakers,
Q = 0.94). The individual attributes on which there is a significant distance
between the speakers are the same for both groups.
The discrepancy between the behaviour of male and female speakers
would appear to be problematic in talking about a general maleness or female-
ness prome. However, the rankings of the female speakers on the other ten
nouns was not significantly different from those of the male speakers. The is-
sue of women's equality seems only to have affected the rankings of the items
man and woman, Mann and Frau. The results will therefore be pooled. For
the purposes of comparison with the other ten nouns, the profiles of man and
woman, Mann and Frau obtained from the male speakers will be used, since
they show greater polarization.
Firstly, when the rankings of ten nouns were compared between the
speakers of German and English, no significant difference was found. The
profiles of each individual noun correlated positively with those of the corre-
sponding noun in the other language (Q values 0 . 8 ) . This goes against the
hypothesis that grammatical gender will determine the perception of the refer-
ent's attributes. Were this the case, clock should have been perceived differ-
ently from Uhr, since German Uhr is feminine in gender, whereas English
clock is pronominalized (in lively style) with the masculine pronoun he.
A number of studies on gender systems and perception have been carried
out by the Michigan Personality and Language Research Group (Guiora et
aI., 1975; Guiora & Sagi, 1978). Guiora and Acton (1979) report a study with
English and Hebrew speakers who were asked to rate existing words on a mas-
culinity-femininity scale. The test words were grouped into three categories:
neutral, in which no clear sexual connotations were present; consonant, in
which sexual connotations were present but in agreement with the grammati-
cal gender of the Hebrew words; dissonant, in which the sexual connotations
were at odds with the grammatical gender. They found that there was little
difference between the English and Hebrew speakers and concluded that the
ratings on the masculinity-femininity scale were a result of shared human ex-
perience, not of the grammatical system.
Clarke, Losoff, Dickenson and McCracken (1981) replicated the study,
but used Arabic and English speakers. They found that the Arabic speakers
were influenced by the grammatical gender of the nouns tested in that they
rated masculine gender nouns higher on the masculinity scale and feminine
gender nouns higher on the femininity scale. The English speakers made rat-
ings according to the predicted sexual connotations in the categories where
this was appropiate (consonant and dissonant).
The Testing of Sex Attributes 135
The discrepancy in results between the study of Guiora and Acton and
that of Clarke et al. could well lie in the methodology itself (see also Herold,
1982, for a reply to Clarke et al.). Both studies required a rating on a scale
which is explicitly labelled masculine and feminine, rather than attributes
which are associated with masculinity/femininity. The subjects are thereby
made highly conscious of the dimension of sex in the task. Clarke et al. also
stated in the instructions that they were not asking about grammatical gender,
which also makes the subjects explicitly aware of the connection. The Arab
subjects were also given the instructions to the test in English, so that it could
be in doubt that they understood exactly what was required. It would seem
less problematic to approach the perception of masculinity and femininity in-
directly, by using a task such as the semantic differential which does not focus
on this dimension.
Hofstatter (1963) obtained results similar to those of this study using the
semantic differential. He investigated ,the perception of the terms Sonne
(fern.) 'sun' and Mond (masc.) 'moon' by German speakers and compared it
with that of Italian speakers, since in Italian the gender assignment of the two
terms sole (masc.) 'sun' and luna (fern.) 'moon' is reversed. As in this study,
the speakers were asked to rate the terms on attribute scales associated with
masculinity/femininity. The profiles of these terms obtained from the Ger-
man and Italian speakers correlated highly, so that Hofstatter concludes that
the grammatical gender has little influence on how the objects are perceived,
but that this perception is determined by the attributes of the objects them-
selves. These results clearly disprove the hypothesis that grammatical gender
determines perception in every case 35.
In order to establish the perception of their relative maleness and female-
ness, the profiles of the ten nouns were compared with those for the items man
and woman, Mann and Frau. These correlations are set out in Tables 5.5 and
5.6. Comparing these two tables, it can be seen that, for both English and
German speakers, the profiles for bear, elephant, pig, horse and car correlate
positively with the profile for man and do not correlate with that for woman.
The profiles for cat, mouse and clock correlate with the profile for woman,
but not with that for man. The profiles for ball and book do not correlate with
either. Again, if grammatical gender were determining the perception of attri-
35 Rainer Maria Rilke (quoted by Hofstatter, 1963) noted that the associated proper-
ties of the sun and moon were in conflict with the grammatical gender in German.
In this connection, Rilke proposed not only a change in the gender, but a change in
the form of the words which matches that change. He wrote: "Ich denke immer im
Sinne von Ie solei! und la lune, und das Umgekehrte in unserer Sprache ist'mir kon-
triir, so dajJ ich immer machen mochte <der grojJe Sonn' und <die Mondin'/" (von
Salis, 1952). (Translation: 'I always think in terms of Ie solei! and la lune, and that
this is reversed in our language does not suit me at all, so that 1 always want to say
'the (masc.) big sun' and 'the (fern.) mooness!'). His remark reflects the strong
association of form and gender which exists in German (see Chapter 3).
136
137
"
""
"
butes, it would be expected that ball in both English and German should cor-
.c or;",
-8 0 ,,-
.c
--
0 0'"

relate with the profile for man, that is, it should have predominantly male
u
cd
'"
cci
'"
I
characteristics. However, this is not the case, and this hypothesis can thus be -0 -0

rejected.

*
-"
Considering these results in connection with the allocation of sex to the
or;'"
0

do

referents reported in the previous section, there is a match between a correla-
"
cid 0
'"
0
u
U
I
u
<
I
"
"
tion with the profile of man and the choice of male sex and between a correla-

@
'"
tion with the female profile and the choice of female sex. This relationship is
00
S s
" depicted in Table 5.7 for German and Table 5.8 for English. In these tables,
-0
.,

00
.,
"

<>- -

." <.!: or; '"
t:
0 -0
t: .
the grammatical gender or pronoun use is also indicated.
"-
dci
" .
:I: 00

For German (Table 5.7), there is a match in all three columns for five in-

"c::
"C::
,,0
stances. This does not, however, help disentangle the question of the domi-

V
,5
" v
*
-8 " nant influence on the assignment of sex. In the case of Ball, which was not -8"

<>- or;

* -0 '"

.c
""
'at... 00

perceived as either predominantly male or female, grammatical gender seems
u
<--
00 00
lfJ cd i3 00

to be the influence. In the neuter gender nouns, where the grammatical gender
S 5
gives no basis for a choice of sex, there was a match in three cases between the
2 .t::
-"
"
*
0.00
*
0." u
or; _
" "
perceived attributes and the sex chosen. For the one noun which is neuter gen-
0<>-
]
0
"'-0
.c-8
"'
or;

00
der and which was not perceived as either male or female in terms of attri-
"
;0 dd f-<-8
f-< .s
" . "
"
" 00 butes, male sex was chosen.
.......
0
Oilll
'" 00

In English, there is agreement in all three columns in seven of the ten cases
-0
u "
"

*
00
-0
"
00 _
"

00

(see Table 5.8). In two instances, the attributes cannot be the basis for the
'"
00
0"
-""

[;l
o
0
"
cd 0"
0.'"
:E dd
choice of sex; in one case (ciock), there is a conflict between the attributes and
" :E
I
, '"

or; "
-"
"

the pronoun use, and the choice reflects the pronoun use. These results also go 00 "'Oil
00
" S
against the proposal that the use of sex-marked pronouns in this context is de-
S
" S
S
*
o<.!:
"
o "

_ 0
termined by the attributes of the referent.
N
<>--0
1ii
",or;
00-0
1ii
"'''
"-0
" "
" "
U cici
'" .c cici
5 -8
g "

"
.c

"'
",Oil
."
- '"
- s
'@ II S
'@
00 <--
'" -
00
"'-
1ii 0
Table 5.7. Sex attributes and sex assignment: German
00
cci
S
'"
cia S
'"
0
"
"
o "
o 0
."
0
"g-a

Noun Gender Attributes
Sex assigned
t> 00
" 0.
"" 0. "
-" " II
* 00 "

*

"
] -- '" i:! " or; "
-00
"' "'
" 0. Bar
M M M
.<:
" "
-00

00 [; 0.
!
00
0.>
&l

Elefant M M
M

I
"
0
-0
I
0
-0

00
" 00 " Ball
M neither M
00
II

" "
00
00
0 0.>
u
Katze
F F
F
0
" -0 '"

"g:a

*
00
00 or; <>-
cr;I
01
"

.S
Maus F F F
"
"
<>-0
,,-0
@
"''''

00
s-s
0
"
<>-0
0 Uhr F F
F

0
0
Z
'"
00 0
Z
'"
I 0 u
" "
Schwein N M
M
u
"

o " "
<os
Pferd
M
"'
"
IE
;'\
N
M
0
;:::0:;
0
Auto N M
M

'8 "

.2
0.
.2 0.
0-0
."
0.-0 Buch
N neither M
"
."

'" .c
.c

" f-<
o '"
f-<
" "
"
on

"
0
00" M, masculine or male; F, feminine or female; N, neuter. 00"

on

on
< ;;
Note. The predominant response of German adults in a sex attribute rating task and sex
..!<
" e

" S e
assignment task is listed with the grammatical gender in order to show the relationship
.c
'"
0
'" 0
,:1
0
:@E
between these three aspects.
U f-< U
Table 5.8. Sex attributes and sex assignment: English
Noun Gender Attributes Sex assigned
Bear M M M
Elephant M M M
Ball M neither M
Cat F F F
Mouse F F F
Clock M F M
Pig M M M
Horse M M M
Car M M M
Book M neither M
M, masculine or male; F, feminine or female.
Note. The predominant response of English adults in a sex attribute rating task and sex
assignment task is listed with the gender of the most frequently used pronoun in 'lively'
style in order to show the relationship between these three aspects.
The results of this study, as those of Hofstatter (1963), clearly disprove
the hypothesis for German that the grammatical gender of nouns is deter-
mined according to the perceived attributes of the referent. It is still possible,
however, that the perceived attributes affected the gender selected for the
generic term in the field of animals. Here, it could be seen that the bear and
elephant were perceived as strongly male, whereas the cat and mouse were per-
ceived as female. This matches the grammatical gender. This could also be ar-
gued for the English choice of pronouns, which can also become convention-
alized.
The choice of sex can be described as the result of a rule which assumes
grammatical gender or pronoun use to be already established. This rule is de-
picted in Figure 5.7. Grammatical gender or pronoun use will determine the
assignment of sex, if it is masculine or feminine. If the gender is neuter, the at-
tributes determine the sex. If these are not specifically male or female, the
choice is for male.
This use of the grammatical classification for such a task as sex assign-
ment rather than the attributes of the referent reflects the psychological
strength of this classification system. Ervin-Tripp (Ervin, 1962) demonstrated
the influence of the grammatical system in Italian by investigating the conno-
tations of gender-marked words. She avoided the factor of the referent's own
attributes, however, by using nonsense words. She tested the perception of
Italian nonsense words, marked by the masculine suffix -0 or the feminine
suffix -a, in terms of male and female characteristics. She selected four attri-
bute poles from those strongly associated with the features 'feminine' and
'masculine' (Osgood et aI., 1957): bello-bruto 'beautiful-ugly', buono-cattivo
'good-bad'. The first adjective is associated with femininity, the second with
""',""
139
is grammatical
YES
gender or pronoun
ASSIGN
use sex-specific?
female
sex
NO
ASSIGN
are attributes YES
male
sex-related?
sex
NO
Fig. 5.7. Schematic representation of the rule determining the subjects' choice in a sex
assignment task
masculinity. Adult Italian speakers were asked first to rate the Italian words
. for men gti uomini and women Ie donne on these scales and secondly a list of
nonsense words. The nonsense words consisted of the same 30 roots with
either the masculine suffix -0 or the feminine suffix -a. Ervin-Tripp found that
the roots with the masculine endings were rated more frequently at the end of
the pole associated with masculinity and the roots with the feminine ending
more frequently at the end of the pole associated with femininity. She writes:
We can conclude that there is a tendency to ascribe different connotations to
masculine and feminine words in Italian, and that the differences are related
to differences in the connotations of gli uomini and le--donne. (1962, p. 259)
This result shows that there is an influence of grammatical gender on per-
ception where the referent itself has no clear attributes. Ervin-Tripp relativizes
her own findings thus:
Generalization of connotations is least important when the association of a
word and a tangible referent is well-learned and automatic, and when the se-
mantic referent is unambiguous and its properties are obvious. Probabilistic
aspects of experience are more important when language is being learned,
when a situation is ambiguous, or when active commerce with the environ-
ment is minimized and thought and feeling are maximized. (1962, p. 260)
The evidence presented here shows that gender as a language classifica-
tion system offers the possibility to the speaker of classifying reality in this
way, if it is appropriate to do so. Thus, on a sex assignment task and in the
writing of children's stories, the grammatical gender system in German and
the established system of pronoun use in English are exploited, albeit uncon-
sciously, by the speaker as the basis for choosing a sex. The attributes of the
referent only become important where the classification system offers no di-
rection. The results confirm the description of gender systems by several au-
thors (see Chapter 1) as the potential basis for personification (e.g. Hjelmslev,
1956, p. 218; Jespersen, 1914, 1924; Wienold, 1967, p. 325). Jakobson's re-
port (1959) of problems in translating personified non-animate nouns into
other languages suggests that these findings can be generalized.
In acquisition, the child seeks regularities and systems within language
and attempts to link these to regularities and systems perceived in the world
external to language. At the same time, language can offer a possible way to
classify reality which would not necessarily come from the perception of that
reality alone. This possibility appears to be taken up by children from an early
age. An interaction takes place between different types of classification sys-
tems, of which language is but one.
It has been proposed that language and particularly language classification
systems such as gender will affect the perception of reality (Sapir-Whorf hy-
pothesis). This hypothesis was investigated by studying the relationship be"
tween the gender classification system and the perception of sex features in a
series of studies. It was shown from children's literature that the sex chosen
for animals and objects in the context of their being anthropomorphized cor-
related highly with the grammatical gender of the noun in German or the pre-
dominant pronoun use (in lively style) in English. In an experimental study
with adults and with children aged 3 -10 years, the sex assigned to a set of ref-
erents was again shown to correlate highly with the gender of the correspond-
ing noun in German or the gender of the pronouns used in English. German
and English speakers behaved differently in so far as the language determined
a difference; for example, the referent clock was made female by German
speakers and male by English speakers. The German speakers made the refer-
ents of the neuter nouns predominantly male, which indicated that the attri-
butes of the referent were another factor in influencing the choice of sex. The
children showed that they were influenced in the choice of sex by the gender of
the noun, but also by their own sex, in that the youngest children also gave the
toys a sex which agreed with their own sex. This tendency decreased in the old-
er children.
The perception of sex-related attributes was investigated with English and
German adults using a semantic differential test on the same set of nouns test-
ed in the sex assignment task, as well as the items man and woman (and the
German equivalents). The perception of the referents in terms of attributes
correlated positively between the speakers of the two languages, thus contra-
dicting the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The grammatical
gender did not agree in every instance with the male- or femaleness of the ref-
erent. On a comparison of the grammatical gender, perceived male ... or female-
ness and sex chosen, the dominant influence on the choice of sex was gram-
matical gender, attributes being taken into account only where the grammati-
cal gender did not make a clear specification. If no specification could be
made from attributes either, the choice would seem to be male.
From this evidence, it is suggested that gender is used by speakers as a
possibility of classifying reality if it is appropriate to do so. This exploitation
of the classification system begins early in language acquisition.
CHAPTER 6
Conclusions
The results of the investigations presented in the previous chapters have pro-
vided a description of aspects of the acquisition of gender in German and En-
glish. Detailed reports of the findings are to be found in the corresponding
sections. The purpose of the following discussion is to draw together the gen-
eral implications of these findings and to show the direction they indicate for
future research.
This study of gender was conceived within the standard psychological
framework. That is, hypotheses were set up about acquisition, tested and re-
examined for their validity; where the hypothesis was not upheld, alternative
explanations for the behaviour were sought. The hypotheses in this study were
formulated on the basis of the linguistic description of the area in so far as
that could be related to acquisition, the description of adult usage and, where
appropriate, principles of acquisition derived from previous research.
The results of the various investigations showed that the hypotheses based
most directly on linguistic description were rarely correct or, if correct, could
not necessarily be related only to that factor. The natural gender rule, for ex-
ample, was shown to be one of many gender assignment rules in German, and
on the basis of this description, it would be predicted that German children
would take longer to learn this rule than English children for whom the natu-
ral gender rule is one of only a few rules. This prediction based on the linguis-
tic description of the rules in the two languages was shown to be incorrect,
since German children learn the natural gender rule as marked on pronouns
before English children. The possible factors influencing this behaviour are
the strong link shown between natural gender and grammatical gender in
adult usage in German, the fact that the German gender system affects parts
of speech other than pronouns, which requires German children to sort out
the system earlier than English children, who are only exposed to gender re-
flected on pronouns, and phonetic similarities between pronoun forms in Eng-
lish, which may make it difficult to keep the forms apart.
The predictions based on markedness theory were rarely upheld. The Ger-
man children, for example, showed no difference in their acquisition of the
masculine and feminine pronouns with reference to natural gender. The En-
glish children did show a tendency to use he more frequently than she, which
matches the prediction, since he is the unmarked form. Here, though, it
N Min (
Conclusions
143
should be noted that the form he is used far more frequently by adults than
the form she, since he is the unmarked form. Possibly for this reason, it is ac-
quired first rather than directly as a consequence of its distributional and se-
mantic unmarkedness.
This finding that linguistic description is rarely adequate alone as a basis
for predicting acquisition behaviour underlines the gap that exists between the
information included in linguistic description and the factors which account
for linguistic behaviour. If linguistic description is to come closer to
accounting for behaviour such as acquisition, its basis must be far broader
than is allowed in any current theories.
It was not found necessary either in the formulation of the hypotheses or
in the explanations offered post factum to appeal to any innate language-spe-
cific capacity. All explanatory principles fitted into the cognitive theory of ac-
quisition. For example, the learning of forms which co-occur frequently with
other forms in input relies on the ability to store and assess the frequency of
co-occurring units. This ability is fundamental to learning gender rules. It
would not seem to be language specific, in the sense of unique to the language-
learning faculty, however, since it underlies pattern learning in all cognitive
areas. As was pointed out in the introduction to this study, however, research
needs to be carried out on the use of such principles in non-language areas in
order to clarify the relationship between language abilities and cognitive abili-
ties.
As was discussed above in relation to the acquisition of the natural gender
rule, in several of the investigations here explanations for the acquisition be-
. haviour had to be provided post factum. These explanations adequately fit the
behaviour found in the acquisition of gender. If the explanations are to have
any generality in the sense of explaining behaviour not only in the acquisition
of gender, but also in other areas of acquisition, then it is essential that such
principles function as predicting hypotheses in further research. For example,
in the study of the animacy rule, English children were found to make an early
association of it with the marking of inanimacy contrasting with the use of he
for animates in which sex is not specified, that is, common gender; the com-
mon gender function of it was acquired later. These findings were explained
using the one form-one function principle, which states that the child will first
associate a form which has two distinct functions with only one of those func-
tions and mark the other function in a different way. Although, in this case,
the explanation seems plausible, the one form-one function principle cannot
be confirmed and refined unless it is used as a predicting principle. Through
the instances in which the principle is shown not to apply, its formulation can
be made increasingly precise. As it is, it is unavoidably vague, for example, in
its reference to the concepts of form and function; these need to be defined in
terms of the child's perception at the particular point in time.
The above example illustrates the necessity of pursuing hypothetical prin-
ciples of language acquisition in order to achieve greater precision. A general
criticism which can be made of a large amount of work in child language is
144 Conclusions
that researchers are content with post factum explanations and continue to ap-
ply explanations as principles post factum in other areas. The purpose of elab-
orating a set of operating principles for acquisition, as has been done by Slo-
bin (1973, 1986b), is that they function as a research programme for further'
testing and refinement. It is hoped that the principles elaborated in this study,
such as the principle of predicting the order of the acquisition of rules accord-
ing to the notion of 'clarity' in the system, will be explored and refined in this'
way, not only in relation to gender systems, but in wider areas of child lan-
guage acquisition.
Appendices
A. List of Nonsense Words Tested for the Use of Phonetic Rules
B. Production of the Definite Article in a Gender Selection Task with 5- and
6-Year-Old German Children
C. Sentences Used in the Pronoun Completion Task
D. Results of the Sentence Completion Task According to the Pronoun Used
and Sex and Age of the Child
E. Cloze Test Used in a Pronoun Experiment
F. Results of the Pronoun Selection in the Cloze Test by Children and Adults
G. Mean Rankings of English Nouns by Adult English Speakers on a Seman-
tic Differential Test According to Attribute and Sex of Subject
H. Mean Rankings of German Nouns by Adult German Speakers on a Seman-
tic Differential Test According to Attribute and Sex of Subject
146 Appendices
Appendix A. List of nonsense words tested for the use of phonetic rules (see pp.
45-50,79-85)
1. der Knaff das Knaff 23. das SchlaB der SchlaB
2. der Schnach das Schnach 24. cter Knink ctie Knink
3. die Knirf der Knirf 25. die Schett das Schett
4. das Troch def Troch 26. def Sperf die Sperf
5. die Klirm def Klirm 27. der Luhr die Luhr
6. der Flett das Flett 28. das Kier def Kier
7. die Knich der Knich 29. cter Knolk das Knolk
8. das Trilch def Trilch 30. def Schrenk das Schrenk
9. die Muhr def Muhr 31. das KniB def KniB
10. der StiB die StiB 32. der Tralp die Tralp
11. das Grolch def Grolch 33. der Knauck die Knauck
12. der Knump das Knump 34. die Speuch def Speuch
13. die Sier das Sier 35. das Zacht die Zacht
14. der Kaft die Kaft 36. die BraIt def Brolt
15. die ZOr das Zor 37. das Wur die WOr
16. die Spank der Spank 38. die Gocht der Gocht
17. def Trant die Trant 39. die Flier das Flier
18. def Treik die Treik 40. das Trunt def Trunt
19. das Gret! die Grett 41. der Quett das Quett
20. cter Schwirk das Schwirk 42. die Trauch def Trauch
21. die Pucht das Pucht 43. der Tsirf das Tsirf
22. das Prier def Prier 44. das Draff der Draff
Appendix B. Production of the definite article in a gender selection task with 5- and
6-year-old German children (see pp. 77 -79)
Gender of the noun
Neuter
Masculine
Feminine
Noun
Pferd
Schwein
Auto
Buch
Total
Bar
Elefant
Ball
Total
Katze
Maus
Uhr
Total
Gender of article chosen
Neuter Masculine
35 7
36 7
43 3
44 1
158 18
6 36
3 39
3 42
12 117
2 0
2 2
0 2
4 4
Feminine
6
5
2
3
16
6
6
3
15
46
44
46
136
Total
48
48
48
48
192
48
48
48
144
48
48
48
144
Appendices
147
Appendix C. Sentences used in the pronoun completion task (see pp. 90 - 94)
English
1. The horse is standing in the stable.
2. The pig is lying on the grass.
3. The book is on the table.
4. The car is in the garage.
5. The bear is under the tree.
6. The elephant is in the circus.
7. The ball is in the toy box.
8. The key is on the hook.
9. The cat is in the cupboard. '
10. The mouse is in the cage.
11. The candle is on the shelf.
12. The clock is in the hall.
German
1. Das Pferd steht im Stall.
2. Das Schwein liegt auf dem Gras.
3. Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch.
4. Das Auto steht in der Garage.
5. Der Bar steht unter dem Baum.
6. Der Elefant ist im Zirkus.
7. Der Ball ist in der Kiste.
8. Der Schlussel hangt an dem Haken.
9. Die Katze ist im Schrank.
10. Die Maus ist im Kafig.
11. Die Kerze ist auf dem Regal.
12. Die Uhr steht im Flur.
.. is eating hay.
.. is very dirty.
.. has many pictures.
.. is out of the rain.
.. is very hungry.
.. is very big.
.. is
.. is very small.
.. is hiding behind the coats.
.. is grey and white.
.. is made of wax.
.. is very old.
... friBt Heu.
.. ist sehr schmutzig.
.. hat viele Bilder.
.. ist nicht im Regen.
.. hat viel Hunger.
.. ist sehr groB.
.. ist nagelneu.
.. ist sehr klein.
.. versteckt sich hinter den Manteln.
.. ist grau und weiB.
... ist aus Wachs.
.. ist sehr alt.
Appendix D. Results of the sentence completion task according to the pronoun used and sex and age of the child (see pp. 90-94)
English Inanimate
Book Car Ball Key Candle Clock Total
5-6 years
Girls
5 - 6 years
Boys
7 - 8 years
Girls
7 - 8 years
Boys
9-10 years
Girls
9-10 years
Boys
he 4
she 0
it 8
he 3
she 0
it 9
he 2
she 0
it 10
he 2
she 1
it 9
he 1
she 0
it 11
he 0
she 0
it 12
Appendix Do (continued)
German Inanimate
o
1
8
4
1
7
2
o
10
3
1
9
o
o
12
1
o
11
Buch Auto
5-6 years M a
Girls F 1
N 11
5-6 years M
Boys F 1
N 10
7-8 years M 0
Girls F a
N 12
7-8 years M 1
Boys F 0
N 11
9-10 years M 0
Girls F a
N 12
9-10 years M 0
Boys F a
N 12
1
a
11
a
1
11
a
o
12
o
a
12
a
a
12
a
o
12
4
o
8
3
1
8
3
o
9
1
o
11
1
1
10
o
o
12
2
1
9
3
1
8
3
1
8
2
o
10
1
o
11
o
o
12
2
1
9
3
o
9
2
1
9
2
o
10
a
a
12
a
a
12
3
1
8
3
o
9
3
a
9
2
a
10
2
a
10
a
11
18
4
50
19
3
50
15
2
55
12
2
58
5
1
66
2
a
70
Ball Schlussel Kerze Uhf Total
12 11
a 1
a a
12 12
a a
o a
12 12
a 0
o a
12 12
a a
a a
12 12
a a
a a
12 12
a a
a 0
o
12
o
a
12
o
a
12
o
a
12
a
a
12
o
a
12
a
1 25
11 25
a 22
a 25
12 26
a 21
o 24
12 24
a 24
a 25
12 24
a 23
a 24
12 24
o 24
o 24
12 24
a 24
Animate
Horse Pig Bear Elephant Cat Mouse Total
5
a
7
8
a
4
5
a
7
5
a
7
3
a
9
a
11
Animate
7
a
5
7
1
4
7
a
5
6
o
6
3
a
9
3
o
9
6
a
6
7
a
5
7
a
5
5
a
7
2
a
10
2
a
10
7
1
4
9
a
3
5
o
7
4
a
8
3
o
9
2
a
10
3
6
3
4
4
4
3
4
5
2
2
8
o
2
10
a
11
4
3
2
5
3
4
5
2
5
5
a
7
2
2
8
1
o
11
32
10
30
40
8
24
32
6
34
27
2
43
13
4
55
9
62
Pferd Schwein Bar Elefant Katze Maus Total
3
a
9
2
1
9
a
a
12
3
o
9
o
a
12
a
a
12
1
3
8
3
2
7
10
a
1
11
a
o
12
o
a
12
12 11
a 1
o a
12 12
a a
o 0
12 11
o 1
a a
12 12
a 0
a a
12 12
a a
a a
12 12
a a
a a
o
12
a
a
12
a
a
12
o
a
12
a
o
12
o
a
12
o
1
11
o
1
11
o
a
12
a
o
12
o
a
12
a
o
12
a
28
27
17
30
26
16
24
26
22
27
25
20
24
24
24
24
24
24
~
&
i
fr.
n
~
~
'0
[
<so
n
~
~
~
150
Appendices
Appendix E. Cloze text used in a pronoun experiment (see pp. 95 - 97)
Age (years) ......... .
Please fill in the blanks numbered 1 - 55 in the following text with an appropriate
word. Please write your answers clearly in the space provided.
Playtime in the toy cupboard
Katy was (1) .......... fast asleep and (2) .......... went very quiet, (3) ......... .
least for a few (4) ........... Then the toys in the toy cupboard (5) .......... to wake
up. "She's asleep now". whispered (6) .......... the ball. "Are (7) .......... sure?"
answered the elephant. "Of course I'm (8) .......... " the ball shouted back at (9)
........... "Alright, alright", (10) .......... the bear, waving (11) .......... hands in
dismay. "You'll wake Katy (12) .......... again." "How (13) .......... a game of
hide and seek?" suggested the pig, (14) .......... the subject. "I (15) .......... know
why you (16) .......... to play that. You're much too fat to hide (17) .......... ", said
the book and (18) .......... looked at the pig disapprovingly. The pig hung (19)
.......... head in shame. "I know", (20) .......... said, "but it is fun". "I'll do the
seeking, if you like," said the ball. So the toys (21) .......... the cupboard doors and
the ball covered (22) .......... eyes and counted to twenty. "Coming", (23) ......... .
called and started the search. The toy cat had hidden behind one cupboard (24)
.......... and was feeling very pleased with (25) ........... But the ball found (26)
.......... easily, spotting a tail sticking out round the side. "Not a bright animal that,"
thought (29) .......... horse who was (28) .......... behind the other door. The horse
had hidden (29) .......... tail very carefully but the ball found (30) .......... quickly
nevertheless. The other toys were discovered in (31) .......... succession. The bead
had fallen (32) .......... and you could hear (33) .......... snores from underneath
the table. The model car's lights were on (34) .......... mistake and they (35)
.......... out in the dark. "How was (36) .......... to know Katy had forgotten to
turn them (37) .......... ?" (38) .......... complained bitterly. The mouse's whiskers
were tickled (39) .......... a draught. "Atishooo" (40) .......... sneezed violently
and so the ball found (41) .......... straight away. The (42) .......... draught rustled
the pages of the book, much to (43) .......... dismay. "I don't think much of this
game", moaned the car again and took (44) .......... off in a huff. The other toys all
laughed as (45) .......... were found and it was (46) .......... quite noisy when the
clock chimed ten o'clock. "Ten o'clock", called the clock. "You'd (47) .......... get
back in the cupboard." "1 wish (48) .......... would not interfere so much with us",
said the ball (49) .......... the elephant who waved (50) .......... trunk in agreement,
and so the toys carried on. Just then the door (51) .......... and Katy's Mum (52)
.......... in. "What a mess", (53) .......... said. "Toys allover the floor". "See,
warned you". said the clock and rubbed (54) .......... hands in glee. The toys locked
(55) .......... glum.
Appendices
1
iii
u
~
o
<Q
151
.,., .,.,
"'::!""'::!"\O O\t.--oo t.-- ...... \O NNo\
t.-- ...... on \ON"'::!" OM N ......
~ ~
<'i
00
Appendix G. Mean rankings of English nouns by adult English speakers on a semantic differential test according to attribute and sex of
subject (see pp. 130-140)
Low - high
Smooth - rough
Hazy - clear
Warm - cold
Little - big
Gentle - wild
Passive - active
Weak - strong
Beautiful - ugly
Sad - happy
Quiet - noisy
Round - jagged
Relaxed - tense
Damp - dry
Constant - changeable
Mean:
Man Man Bear Bear Elephant Elephant Ball Ball Woman Woman Cat Cat
m f m f m f m f m f mf
3.08 3.17
3.67 3.17
3.50 3.33
3.08 2.33
4.17 4.25
3.33 2.83
4.17 3.33
4.17 3.58
3.08 2.75
3.58 3.17
3.42 3.08
3.33 2.83
3.50 3.25
3.33 3.16
3.58 3.42
3.53 3.18
2.50 3.00 3.50
3.75 3.92 3.42
3.00 3.00 3.00
1.92 2.67 2.92
3.75 4.42 3.75
3.83 4.58 3.33
3.33 3.92 3.75
3.67 4.58 4.17
2.08 2.17 2.50
2.92 3.17 2.50
3.33 3.58 3.33
2.33 2.33 2.17
2.50 2.83 3.17
3.50 3.67 3.50
3.42 3.50 3.58
3.06 3.42 3.24
3.58
3.33
2.67
2.17
3.83
3.33
3.33
3.75
2.58
2.50
3.33
2.00
3.17
3.17
3.17
3.06
2.83
2.17
3.75
3.33
2.33
3.00
2.50
3.17
2.33
3.08
3.00
1.00
3.25
3.25
3.75
2.85
3.33
1.75
3.67
3.58
3.83
3.25
3.25
3.17
3.17
3.25
3.08
1.00
3.92
3.50
3.25
3.13
2.92
2.25
3.75
2.75
2.25
1.67
2.83
2.00
1.25
3.00
2.67
2.50
2.33
3.08
3.42
2.59
3.00
2.50
3.42
1.92
2.33
2.25
3.42
2.83
2.08
3.17
3.17
2.75
3.08
3.33
3.58
2.86
3.08 3.17
3.33 3.08
2.75 2.67
2.17 2.00
1.92 1.42
3.08 3.00
3.17 2.83
2.58 3.00
2.00 1.92
2.92 3.00
2.08 1.67
2.75 2.67
2.50 2.33
3.33 3.50
3.42 3.25
2.74 2.63
Appendix G. Differential test (continued)
Low - high
Smooth - rough
Hazy - clear
Warm - cold
Little - big
Gentle - wild
Passive - active
Weak - strong
Beautiful - ugly
Sad - happy
Quiet - noisy
Round - jagged
Relaxed - tense
Damp - dry
Constant - changeable
Mean:
m, male; f, female
Mouse Mouse Clock Clock Horse Horse Pig Pig
f
m f m f m f m
2.58
3.75
3.08
2.67
1.58
2.00
3.75
1.67
3.00
3.25
1.83
2.42
2.92
2.83
3.42
2.72
2.75
3.67
2.92
2.83
1.92
2.08
3.92
1.83
3.00
3.08
2.00
2.33
3.00
2.92
3.33
2.77
3.25
1.75
3.42
3.92
2.67
2.83
3.75
3.33
2.50
3.25
2.50
2.67
2.83
3.42
3.33
3.03
3.42
2.25
3.83
4.58
2.67
3.50
3.75
3.50
2.50
2.75
2.50
2.83
3.17
3.50
3.17
3.19
3.50
2.92
4.00
2.17
4.50
3.17
4.00
3.83
1.92
3.25
3.42
2.25
3.25
3.17
3.50
3.26
3.33
2.83
3.50
2.00
3.92
2.83
3.33
3.42
1.92
3.42
3.25
2.58
2.83
3.00
3.33
3.03
3.08 2.92
3.17 2.83
3.17 3.00
2.25 1.83
3.17 2.83
2.75 2.50
3.08 3.00
3.50 3.17
3.17 2.50
2.75 2.75
3.75 3.33
1.75 1.50
2.75 2.58
2.75 3.00
3.08 3.08
2.94 2.72
Car
m
Car
f
Book Book
m f
3.33 3.08 3.00
2.17 2.08 2.25
3.00 3.58 3.58
3.17 4.00 3.00
4.00 3.25 2.83
3.17 3.58 3.00
-2.17 2.83 1.92
3.17 3.92 2.50
2.58 3.00 2.75
2.92 3.00 2.50
3.92 4.00 2.50
3.17 3.08 4.25
2.58 2.83 3.08
3.00 3.33 3.75
3.42 3.17 1.92
3.05 3.25 3.07
3.00
2.58
3.33
3.33
2.92
2.92
2.08
3.00
2.42
2.67
2.83
4.50
3.00
4.08
2.08
2.98
~
V>
...,
.G-
oo
ro
o
[
~
[
~ .
-
V>
W
Appendix H. Mean rankings of German nouns by adult German speakers on a semantic differential test according to attribute and sex of ~
subject (see pp. 130-140) ...
Mann Mann Ear Bar
f
Elefant Elefant Ball Ball
f m f m m f m
Tief - hoch 3.17
Glatt - rauh 3.42
Verschwommen ~ klar 3.42
Warm - kalt 3.00
Klein - groB 4.00
Sanft - wild 3.42
Passiv - aktiv 3.92
Schwach - stark 4.25
Schon - haBlich 2.92
Traurig - froh 3.42
Leise ~ laut 3.58
Rund - eckig 3.25
Gelost - gespannt 3.50
Feucht ~ trocken 3.25
Stetig - veranderlich 3.33
Mean: 3.46
3.00
3.25
3.25
2.08
3.58
2.92
3.33
3.42
2.67
3.08
3.17
3.00
2.92
3.08
3.58
3.09
Appendix H. Differential test (continued)
3.00 3.25 3.75
4.00 3.25 3.75
3.08 3.33 3.42
2.50 1.83 2.67
4.50 4.58 4.50
4.50 4.25 3.58
3.58 4.17 3.67
4.67 4.83 4.50
2.25 2.08 2.42
3.08 2.92 2.75
3.50 3.08 4.00
2.42 2.17 2.50
2.83 3.25 2.50
3.25 3.33 3.25
3.50 3.25 3.50
3.38 3.31 3.38
3.58
3.67
3.33
2.08
4.83
2.75
3.42
4.67
2.25
2.83
3.75
1.92
3.00
3.75
2.83
3.25
2.92 3.17
2.33 1.17
3.67 3.33
3.25 3.92
2.50 2.67
3.08 3.00
2.50 2.67
3.08 3.17
2.67 2.17
3.08 3.00
3.25 3.00
1.08 1.00
3.25 3.25
3.17 3.58
3.75 2.75
2.91 2.79
Frau Frau Katze Katze
m f m f
2.83 3.00 3.00
2.42 2.33 3.50
3.25 3.42 3.08
2.67 1.83 2.25
2.58 2.67 2.00
1.75 2.75 3.00
3.17 3.58 4.00
1.92 3.00 2.83
1.33 2.58 2.33
3.17 3.08 2.83
2.58 3.08 2.25
2.75 2.67 2.50
2.42 2.92 2.75
2.92 3.08 3.25
3.17 3.67 3.50
2.59 2.91 2.87
2.92
2.08
3.33
1.75
2.33
3.00
4.00
3.08
1.42
3.08
1.42
2.17
2.75
3.58
3.92
2.72
Maus Maus Uhr Uhr
f
Pferd Pferd Schwein Schwein Auto Auto Euch Buch
m f m
m f m f m f m f
Tief - hoch 2.58
Glatt - rauh 2.92
Verschwommen ~ klar 3.17
Warm - kalt 2.58
Klein - groB 1.50
Sanft - wild 2.08
Passiv - aktiv 3.67
Schwach - stark 1.75
SchOn - haBlich 3.17
Traurig - froh 3.08
Leise - laut 1.75
Rund - eckig 2.25
Geiost - gespannt 2.92
Feucht - trocken 2.75
Stetig - veranderlich 3.33
Mean: 2.63
m, male; f. female
2.83
2.50
3.25
2.08
1.17
2.08
3.58
1.50
2.25
3.00
1.83
2.33
3.17
3.33
3.25
2.54
3.08 3.17 3.75
2.33 1.83 2.75
3.58 3.58 3.42
3.50 4.25 2.50
2.50 2.75 4.08
2.83 3.25 3.00
2.67 3.83 3.75
3.00 3.17 4.00
2.33 2.33 2.00
3.00 3.00 3.08
2.58 2.58 3.42
2.50 2.67 2.75
3.33 3.00 2.92
3.42 3.50 3.25
2.50 3.25 3.17
2.90 3.08 3.18
3.33
2.58
3.25
1.83
3.92
3.00
3.50
3.92
2.00
3.00
3.42
2.50
3.17
2.83
3.17
3.03
3.08
3.66
3.17
2.50
3.00
3.08
2.83
3.42
3.42
2.75
3.75
1.92
3.00
2.67
3.08
3.02
3.00
3.08
3.33
2.33
3.00
2.75
3.08
3.33
L75
3.08
3.67
1.83
2.83
2.67
3.08
2.92
3.17 3.00 3.17 3.00
2.50 1.67 2.42 2.00
3.50 3.67 3.50 3.67
3.58 4.17 3.33 3.67
3.50 3.33 2.75 2.92
3.25 3.08 3.00 3.00
2.67 2.67 2.08 2.08
3.75 3.50 2.92 3.00
2.50 2.75 2.50 2.25
3.00 3.00 2.75 2.92
3.75 3.83 2.67 2.33
3.33 3.00 4.58 4.50
3.08 3.00 3.08 3.00
3.17 3.17 3.92 4.00
3.50 3.17 2.08 2.17
3.19 3.13 2.98 2.97
~
"
ro
o
[
{
;;.
~
-
U>
U>
References
Abbott, E. A. (1966). A Shakespearian grammar. New York: Dover.
Altmann, G . & Raettig, V. (1973). Genus und Wortauslaut im Deutschen. Zeitschri/t
jur Phonetik, Sprachwissenschajt und Kommunikationsjorschung, 26, 297 - 303.
Angermaier, M. J. W. (1968). Ergebnisse von Messungen def sprachlichen Entwick-
lung 3 - 9jahriger mit dem psycholinguistischen Entwicklungstest PET. In G. Augst
(Ed.), Spracherwerb von 6 bis 16 (pp. 33 - 52). Dusseldorf: Schwann.
Arndt, W. W. (1970). Nonrandom assignment of loanwords: German noun gender.
Word, 26, 244 - 253.
Aron, A. W. (1930). The gender of English loanwords in colloquial American German.
In 1. T. Hatfield (Ed.), Curme Volume oj Linguistic Studies (pp. 11-28). Balti-
more: The Linguistic Society of America.
Atkinson, M. (1982). Explanations in the Study oj Child Language Development.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ausbuttel, E. (1904). Das personliche Geschlecht unpers6nlicher Substantiva ein-
schliejJlich der Tiernamen im Mittel-Englischen seit dem Aussterben des grammati-
schen Geschlechts (Studien zur englischen Philologie, Vol. 19). Halle: Niemeyer.
Avery, D. (1984, May). Die Diskriminierung der Frau beginnt in den Schulbuchern.
UNESCO Service, 31 (5), 11-13.
Bach, E. (1968). Nouns and noun phrases. In E. Bach & R. T. Harms (Eds.), Univer-
sals in Linguistic Theory (pp. 91-122). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Baetens-Beardsmore, H. (1971). A gender problem in language contact situation. Lin-
gua, 27, 141-159.
Barbaud, P., Ducharme, c., & Valois, D. (1981). L'usage du genre en canadien-fran-
cais. Une etude syntaxique et sociolinguistique de la feminisation des noms a initiale
vocalique. Montreal Working Papers in Linguistics, 17, 1-42.
Baron, 1., & Kaiser, A. (1975). Semantic components in children's errors with pro-
nouns. Journal 0/ Psycholinguistic Research, 4, 303 - 318.
Baron, N. S. (1971). A reanalysis of English grammatical gender. Lingua, 27,
113 -140.
Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: The acquisition of pragmatics. New York:
Academic.
Bauch, H. 1. (1971). Zum Informationsgehalt der Kategorie des Genus im Deutschen,
Englischen und Polnischen. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universittit Rostock,
20 (6), 411-418.
Beit-Hallahmi, B., Catford, 1. C., Cooley, R. E., Dull, C. Y., Guiora, A. Z., & Ra-
luszny, M. (1974). Grammatical gender and gender identity development: Cross-cul-
tural and cross-lingual implications. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 44 (3),
424-431.
References
157
Berman, R. (1986). Acquisition of Hebrew. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic
study oj language acquisition (Vol. 1). Hillsdale, Nl: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bindseil, H. E. (1836). Uber die verschiedenen Bezeichnungsweisen des Genus in den
Sprachen. In H. E. Bindseil (Ed.), Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen vergleichenden
Sprachlehre. Hamburg: Perthes.
Bloomfield, L. (1946). Algonquian. In H. Hojer (Ed.), Linguistic structures oj native
America (pp. 85 -129). New York: Viking Press.
B6hme, K. (1983). Children's understanding and awareness o/German possessive pro-
nouns. Doctoral dissertation, University of Nijmegen, Holland.
B6hme, K., & LeveIt, W. (1979). Children's use and awareness of natural and syntactic
gender in possessive pronouns. Paper presented at the International Reading Re-
search Seminar on Linguistic Awareness and Learning to Read, Victoria, Canada.
Bornemann, E. (1971). Sex im Volksmund. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Brener, R. (1983). Learning the deictic meaning of third person pronouns. Journal oj
Psycholinguistic Research, 12 (3), 235 - 264.
Brener, R. (1986). The acquisition of personal pronouns. Doctoral dissertation, Uni-
versity of Hull, Great Britain. '
Brinkmann, H. (1954). Zum grammatischen Geschlecht im Deutschen. Soumalaisen
Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia, Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae [Ser. B.
Tom.], 84, 371- 428.
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Harmondsworth: George Allen &
Unwin.
Brown, R. W., & Lenneberg, E. H. (1954). A study in language and cognition. Journal
oj Abnormal and Social Psychology, 44, 454 - 462.
Brugmann, K. (1897). The nature and origin of the noun genders in the Indo-European
languages. New York: Scribner.
Brunner, K. (1962). Die englische Sprache (Vol. 2). Tubingen: Niemeyer.
Carstensen, B. (1980a). The gender of English loan-words in German. Studia Anglica
Posnaniensa, 12, 3 - 25.
Carstensen, B. (1980b). Das Genus englischer Fremd- und Lehnworter im Deutschen.
In W. Viereck (Ed.), Studien zum Ein/lujJ der englischen Sprache au/ das Deutsche.
Tubingen: Narr.
Chiat, S. (1978). The analysis oj children's pronouns: An investigation into the prere-
quisites/or linguistic knowledge. Doctoral dissertation, University of London, Great
Britain.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects oj the theory oj syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1977). Essays onjorm and interpretation. New York: North-Holland.
Clahsen, H. (1982a). Spracherwerb in der Kindheit: Eifie Untersuchung zur Entwick-
lung der Syntax bei Kleinkindern. Tubingen: Narr.
Clahsen, H. (1982b). Dokumentation von Daten zur fruhen Kindersprache. Wupperta-
ler Arbeitspapiere zur Sprachwissenschaft, 4. Universitat-Gesamthochschule-Wup-
pertal.
Clahsen, H. (1983). Die Profilanalyse: Ein linguistisches Verjahren fur die Sprachdia-
gnose im Vorschulalter. Unpublished manuscript, University of Dusseldorf, Federal
Republic of Germany.
Clahsen, H. (1984). Der Erwerb von Kasusmarkierungen in der deutschen Kinderspra-
che. Linguistische Berichte, 89 (84), 1- 31.
Clark, E. V. (1971). On the acquisition of the meaning of before and after. Journal oj
Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 10, 266-275.
158 References
Clark, E. V. (1986). Acquisition of Romance, with special reference to French. In D. I.
Slobin (Ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition (Vol. 1). Hillsdale,
NJ: Laurence Erlbaum.
Clark, H. H., & Clark, E. V. (1977). Psychology and language: An introduction to psy-
cholinguistics. New York: Harcourt, Brace, J ovanovitch.
Clarke, M. A., Losoff, A., Dickenson, M., & McCracken, J. A. S. (1981). Gender per-
ception in Arabic and English. Language Learning, 31 (1), 159 -169.
Clyne, M. G. (1967). Transference and triggering: Observations on the language assimi-
lation of postwar German-speaking migrants in Australia. The Hague: Martinus Ny-
hoff.
Clyne, M. O. (1969). Inhalt, Klangassoziation und Genus in def deutschen Sprache bei
Ein- und Zweisprachigen. Zeitschri/t jiir Phonetik, Sprachwissenschajt und Kom-
munikationsjorschung, 22 (1), 218 - 224.
Comrie, B. (1981). Language universals and linguistic typology: Morphology and syn-
tax. Oxford: Blackwell.
Corbett, G. G. (1979a). The agreement hierarchy. Journal oj Linguistics, 15 (2),
203 -224.
Corbett, G. O. (1979b). A mis-match between semantics and syntax: Animacy in Russi-
an. Paper presented to the Spring Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great
Britain, April, 1979, Hull, Great Britain.
Coseriu, E. (1982). Naturbild und Sprache. In J. Z. Zimmermann (Ed.), Dos Naturbild
des Menschen (pp. 260-284). Munich: Fink.
Coseriu, E., & Geckeler, H. (1974). Linguistics and semantics. In T.A. Sebeok (Ed.)
Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 12 (pp. 103 -171). The Hague: Mouton.
Cromer, R. F. (1974). The development of language and cognition: The cognition hy-
pothesis. In B. Foss (Ed.). New perspectives in child development (pp. 184-252).
Bungay, Suffolk, Great Britain: Penguin Education.
Curme, G. O. (1935). Parts oj speech and accidence. Boston: Heath.
Curme, G. O. (1960). A grammar oj the German language (2nd ed.). New York: Un-
gar.
Deutsch, W., & Jarvella, R. J. (1983). Asymmetrien zwischen Sprachproduktion und
Sprachverstehen. In C. F. Graumann & T. Herrmann (Eds.), Karl Buhlers Axioma-
tik. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
Deutsch, W., & Pechmann, T. (1978). Ihr, dir, or mir? On the acquisition of pronouns
in German children. Cognition, 6, 155 -168.
de Villiers, J. G., & de Villiers, P. A. (1986). Acquisition of English. In D. I. Slobin
(Ed.), The crosslinguistic study 0/ language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Donaldson, M. E., & Wales, R. J. (1970). On the acquisition of some relational terms.
In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the development oj language (pp. 235 - 268).
New York: Wiley.
Engels, B. (1976). Gebrauchsanstieg der lexikalischen und semantischen Amerikanis-
men in .:lwei Jahrgangen der "Welt" (1954 und 1964) (Mainzer Studien zur Amerika-
nistik, Vol. 2). Bern: Peter Lang.
Ervin, S. (1962). The connotations of gender. Word, 18, 249- 261. (Reprinted in S. M.
Ervin-Tripp, 1973, Language acquisition and communicative choice. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Faraday, A. (1973). Dream Power. New York: Afor.
Fodor, I. (1959). The origin of grammatical gender (Part 1). Lingua, 8 (1), 1 - 41; 8 (2),
186-214.
References
159
Froitzheim, C. (1981). Sprache und Geschlecht: Bibliographie (Series B, Paper No. 72).
Linguistic Agency, University of Trier, Federal Republic of Germany.
Gabelentz, G. v. d. (1891). Die Sprachwissenschajt. Leipzig: Weizel. (New edition pub-
lished in 1972 with essay by E. Coseriu, Tiibingen: Narr).
Galinsky, H. (1980). American neologisms in German. American Speech, 55,
243 -263.
Geest, T. v. d. (1978). Sprachentwicklungsprozesse in semantischer und interaktionisti-
scher Sicht. Zeitschrift fur Entwicklungspsychologie und Piidagogische Psychologie,
10 (3), 286 - 304.
Gill, W. S. (1967, April). Animal content in the Rorschach. Journal of Projective Tech-
niques and Personality Assessment, 49 - 56.
Gipper, H. (1972). Gibt es ein sprachliches Relativitiitsprinzip? Untersuchungen zur
Sapir- Whorf-Hypothese. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Givan, T. (1986). Function, structure, and language acquisition. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.),
The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (Vol. 2). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum. ,
Glahn, N. van (1918). Zur Geschichte des grammatischen Geschlechts im Mitteleng-
lischen vor dem v611igen Erl6schen des aus dem Altenglischen ererbten Zustandes.
Anglistische Forschungen (Vol. 53). Heidelberg: Carl Winters.
Gleitman, L. (1981). Maturational determinants of language growth. Cognition, 10,
105 -113.
Goggin, J. (1974). Proactive interference and gender change in short-term memory.
Bulletin oj the Psychonomic SOciety 3, 222 - 224.
Gopnik, A. (1984). The acquisition of gone and the development of the object concept.
Journal oj Child Language, 11, 273 - 292.
Greenberg, J. H. (1966a). Language universals: With special reference to feature hier-
archies. The Hague: Mouton.
Greenberg, J. H. (1966b). Language universals. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current Trends
in Linguistics (Vol. 3, pp 61 -112). The Hague: Mouton.
Greenfield, P. M., Nelson, K. E., & Saltzman, E. (1972). Development of rule-bound
strategies for manipulating seriated cups: A parallel between action and grammar.
Cognitive Psychology, 3, 291-311.
Greenhalgh, S. (1976). Erwerb und Entwicklung der Interrogativpronomen in der Kin-
dersprache am Beispiel des Deutschen. Master's thesis, University oJ Kiel, Federal
Republic of Germany.
Gregor, B. (1983). Genuszuordnung: Das Genus englischer Lehnworter im Deutschen.
Tiibingen: Niemeyer.
Grimm, H. (1968). Der Heidelberger Sprachentwicklungstest (H-S-E-T): Theoretische
Grundlagen und empirische Ergebnisse (pp. 53 - 80). In G. Augst (Ed.), Spracher-
werb von 6 bis 16. Dusseldorf: Schwann.
Grimm, H. (1973). Strukturanalytische Untersuchung der Kindersprache. Stuttgart:
Huber.
Grimm, J. (1831). Deutsche Grammatik. Gottingen.
Guentherodt, I., Hellinger, M., Pusch, L. F., & Tramel-PlOtz, S. (1980). RichtUnien
ZUr Vermeidung sexistischen Sprachgebrauchs. Linguistische Berichte, 69, 15 - 21.
Guiora, A. Z., & Acton, W. R. (1979). Personality and language behavior: A restate-
ment. Language Learning: A Journal oj Applied Linguistics, 29 (1), 193 - 204.
Guiora, A. Z., & Sagi, A. (1978). A cross-cultural study of symbolic meaning: Devel-
opmental aspects. Language Learning, 28 (2), 381 - 386.
160 References
Guiora, A. Z., Paluszny, M., Beit-Hallahmi, B., Catford, J. C., Cooley, R. E., & Dull,
C. Y. (1975). Language and person: Studies in language behavior. Language Learn-
~ . ~ 0 ) , ~ - M . .
Gvozdev, A. N. (1949). Formirovanie u rebenka grammaticeskogo stroja russkogo
jazyka [ The development of the grammatical structures of Russian in the child].
Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii Pedagogiceskich Nauk RSFSR.
Hall, R. A., Jr. (1951). Sex-reference and grammatical gender in English. American
Speech, 26, 170 -172.
Hawkins, J. A. (1985), On English/German contrasts: Some explanatory speculations.
London: Croom Helm.
Heider, E. R. (1972). Universals in color naming and memory. Journal of Experimental
Psychology,93,10-20.
Heider, E. R., & Olivier, D. (1972). The structure of the color space in naming and
memory for two languages. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 337 - 354.
Hellinger, M. (1980). Zuni. Gebrauch weiblicher Berufsbezeichnungen im Deutschen:
Variabilitat als Ausdruck auBersprachlicher Machtstrukturen. Linguislische Berich-
te, 69, 37 - 58.
Herold, A. L. (1982). Linguistic relativity: Transforming the relative into the insensi-
ble: A reply to Clarke et al. Language Learning, 32 (1), 201.-207.
Hjelmslev, L. (1956). On numerus og genus [On number and gender]. In L. L. Hamma-
rich (Ed.), Festskrift til Christen MlIer (pp. 167 -190). Copenhagen: Borgens.
Hjelmslev, L. (1959). Anime et inanime. In L. Hjelmslev (Ed.), Essais linguisliques
(pp. 211-249). Copenhagen: Cercle Linguistique de Copenhagen.
Hofstatter, P. R. (1963).. Uber sprachliche Bestimmungsleistungen: Das Problem des
grammatikalischen Geschlechts von Sonne und Mond. Zeitschrift fur experimentelle
und angewandte Psychologie, 10, 91-108.
Hofstatter, P. R. (1973). Einfuhrung in die Sozialpsychologle. Stuttgart: Kroner.
Hook, D. D. (1974). Sexism in English pronouns and forms of address. General Lingu-
istics, 14, 86 - 96.
Ibrahim, M. H. (1973). Grammatical gender: Its origin and development. The Hague:
Mouton.
loffe, V. V. (1973). The origin and development of the gender category in the proto- In-
doeuropean language. Filologicheski nauki, 16 (2), 53 - 62.
Jacobsen, B. (1977). Transformational generative grammar. (North-Holland Linguistic
Series). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Jakobson, R. (1932). Zur Struktur des russischen Verbums (pp. 74-84). Charisteria
Giuidelmo Mathesio. Prague: Cercle Linguistique de Prague.
Jakobson, R. (1959). On linguistic aspects of translation. In R. A. Brower (Ed.). On
Translation (pp. 232 - 239). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jarnatowskaja, V. E. (1968). Die Kategorie des Genus der Substantive im System der
deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 5, 213 - 219.
Jespersen, O. (1914). A modern English grammar on historical principles: Part 7. Syn-
tax. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Jespersen, O. (1924). The philosophy oj grammar. London: George Allen & Unwin.
(Reprinted 1975).
Joly, A. (1975). Toward a theory of gender in modern English. In: A. Joly and T. Fras-
er (Eds.) Studies in English grammar (pp. 227 .... 283). Paris: Editions Universitaires.
Kaa, M. (1976). The logic of non-European linguistic categories. In R. Pinxten (Ed.),
Universalism versus relativism in language and thought (pp. 85 - 98). The Hague
Mouton.
References
161
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1978). The interplay between syntax, semantics and phonology in
language acquisition processes. In R. N. Campbell & P. T. Smith (Eds.), Recent ad-
vances in the psychology of language (pp. 1 - 21). New York: Plenum.
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A junctional approach to child language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Karpf, F. (1930). Studien zur Syntax in den Werken Geoffrey Chaucers (Wiener Beitra-
ge zur englischen Philologie, Vol. 55). Vienna: Braunmuller.
Katz, J. J., & Fodor, J. A. (1963). The structure of a semantic theory. Language, 39,
170-210.
Keenan, E. L., & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar.
Linguistic Inquiry, 8 (1), 63 - 99.
Keenan, E. L., Comrie, B., & Hawkins, J. A. (1974). The psychological testing of a pu-
tative linguistic universal. Unpublished seminar paper, University of Essex, Great
Britain.
Key, M. R. (1975). Male/female language, with a comprehensive bibliography. Metu-
chen, NJ: Scarecrow.
Kleinke, C. L. (1974). Knowledge and favorability of descriptive sex names for males
and females. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 39, 419-422.
Kbpcke, K.-M. (1982). Untersuchungen zum Genussystem der deutschen Gegenwarts-
sprache. Tiibingen: Niemeyer.
Kopeke, K.-M., & Zubin, D. A. (1981). Zur Frage der psychologischen Realitat von ge-
nuszuweisenden Regeln zu den einsilbigen Nomen der deutschen Gegenwartsspra-
che. Paper presented to the Linguistic Colloquium, University of Kiel, Federal Rew
public of Germany.
Kbpcke, K.-M., & Zubin, D. A. (1984). Sechs Prinzipien fOr die Genuszuweisung im
Deutschen: Ein Beitrag zur natiirlichen Klassifikation. Linguistische Berichte, 93,
26- 50.
Kuroda, S.-Y. (1968). English relativisation and certain related problems. Language,
44, 244 - 266. (Reprinted in D. A. Reibel and S. Schane (Eds.), Modern Studies in
English (pp. 264-287). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kutter, U. (1972). Rezension zu Bornemann, E.: Sex im Volksmund. Fabula, 13,
200 - 201.
Lakoff, R. (1973). Language and woman's place. Language in Society, 2, 45 -79.
Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and woman's place. New York: Harper.
Lang, A. (1976). The semantic base of gender in German. Lingua, 40, 55 - 68.
Lang, E. (1977). Semantik der koordinativen Verknupjung (Studia Grammatica, Vol.
14). Berlin: Akademie ..
Langenfelt, G. (1951). 'She' and 'her' instead of 'it' and 'its'. Anglia, 70, 90-101.
Lees, R. B. (1960). The grammar of English nominalizations. International Journal of
American Linguistics, 26 (3), (Part 2, Publication 12 of the Indiana Research Center
in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics).
Lehrer, A. (1985). Markedness and antonymy. Journal o/Linguistics, 21 (2), 397 -430.
Levy, Y. (1983). It's frogs all the way down. Cognition, 15, 75-93.
Lienert, G. A. (1978). Verteilungsjreie Methoden in der Biostatistik (Vol. 2, 2nd ed.).
Konigstein im Taunus: Anton Hain Meisenheim.
Lohmann, J. (1932). Genus und Sexus: eine morphologische Studie. Zeitschriftfur verw
gleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiet der indogermanischen Sprachen,
[Suppll0j.
Lutzmann, K. (1975). Rezension zu Ernest Borneman: Sex im Volksmund. Westerw
manns Piidagogische Beitrage, 27 (4), 224 - 226.
162
References
Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics (Vols. 1,2). London: Cambridge University Press.
Mackay, D. O. (1980). On the goals, principles and procedures for prescriptive gram-
mar: Singular they. Language in Society, 9, (3) 349-368.
MacWhinney, B. (1978). The acquisition of morphophonology. Monographs of the
Society for Research in Child Development, 43 (1- 2, Serial No. 174).
Maratsos, M. P. (1979). Learning how and when to use pronouns and determiners. In
P. Fletcher and M. Garman (Eds.), Language acquisition (pp. 225-240). Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maratsos, M. P. (1983). The child's construction of grammatical categories. In E.
Wanner and L. R. Gleitmann (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp.
240-266). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maratsos, M. P., & Chalkley, M. A. (1980). The internal language of children's syntax,
the ontogenesis and representation of syntactic categories. In K. E. Nelson (Ed.),
Children's language (Vol. 2). New York: Gardner.
Martinet, A. (1956). Le genre feminin en indo-europeen: Examen fonctional du pro-
bleme. Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris, 52, 83 - 95.
Martinet, A. (1962). A junctional view oj language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martyna, W. (1980). The psychology of the generic masculine. In R. Barker, N. Fur-
man, & S. McConnell-Ginet (Eds.), Women and language in literature and society
(pp. 69-78). New York: Praeger.
Mater, E. (1967). Riickliiufiges Worterbuch der deu!schen Gegenwartssprache (2nd
ed.). Leipzig: VEB Verlag.
Mathiot, M. (1979). Sex roles as revealed through referential gender in American Eng-
lish. In M. Mathiot (Ed.), Ethnolinguistics: Boas, Sapir and Whorf revisited (pp.
1 - 47). (Contributions to the Sociology of Language, Vol. 27). The Hague: Mouton.
McConnell-Ginet, S. (1979). Prototypes, pronouns and persons. In M. Mathiot (Ed.),
Boas, Sapir and Whorf revisited (pp. 63 - 83). The Hague: Mouton.
McConnell-Ginet, S. (1980). Linguistics and the Feminist Challenge. In R. Barker, N.
Furman, & S. McConnell-Ginet (Eds.), Women and language in literature and
society (pp. 3 -25). New York: Praeger.
McConnell-Ginet, S. (1983). Review article of Orasanu, Slater, & Loeb-Adler (Eds.),
Language, sex and gender, and of Vetterling-Bragging (Ed.), Sexist language. Lan-
guage, 59 (2), 373 - 391.
Meillet, A. (1965). Linguistique historique et linguistique generale. Paris: Klincksieck.
Miller, C., & Swift, K. (1972). De-sexing the English language. Ms., 1.
Miller, M. (1976). Zur Logik der friihkindlichen Sprachentwicklung. Stuttgart: Klett.
(English translation by R. T. King, 1979, Springer Series in Language and Communi-
cation, Vol. 3. New York, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag).
Mills, A. E. (1986). Acquisition of German. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.). The crosslinguis!ic
study of language acquisition (Vol. 1). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbau
m
.
Mohn, D. (1972). Rezension zu E. Bornemann: Sex im Volksmund. Germanistik Inter-
nationales, 13, 465 - 466.
Morsbach, L. (1913). Grammatisches und psychologisches Geschlecht im Englischen.
Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
Moulton, J., Robinson, G. M., & Elias, C. (1978). Sex bias in language use: 'Neutral'
pronouns that aren't. American Psychologist, 33, 1032 -1036.
Mugdan, J. (1977). Flexionsmorphologie und Psycholinguistik. (Tiibinger Beitrdge zur
Linguistik, Vol. 82). Ttibingen: Narr.
Mulford, R. (1985). 'Comprehension of Icelandic pronoun gender: Semantic versus for-
mal factors. Journal of Child Language, 12, 443 - 454.
References 163
Nalibow, K. L. (1973). The oppositions in Polish of genus and sexus in women's sur-
names. Names, 21, 78 - 81.
Nash, R. (1982). Jobs, gender, and civil rights: Puerto Rican Spanish responds to the
law. Word, Journal of the International Linguistic Organization, 33 (1-2),81-95.
Nesbit, E. (1904). The Phoenix and the carpet (1st od.). London: Fisher, Unwin (Re-
printed 1959, London: Puffin).
Nilsen, A. P. (1973). Grammatical gender and its relationship (0 the equal treatment of
males and females in children's books. Doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa.
Oehmann, E. (1969). Genusbeeinflussung von Substantiven durch eine fremde Spra-
che. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, 153, 1-20.
Orasanu, J., Slater, K. M., & Loeb-Adler, L. (Eds). (1979). Language, sex and gender:
Does '10 difference' make it difference? New York: Annals of the New York Acade-
my of Sciences, 327.
Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The Measurement ofMean-
ing. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. (4th ed. 1964).
PaIsd6ttir, M. (1982). Hvernig laerist kyn pe/s6n ujornajna? [How is personal pronoun
gender learned?]. Unpublished manuscript, University of Iceland.
Park, T.-Z. (1974). A study of German language development. Mimeograph, Psycho-
logisches Institut der Universitat Bern.
Park, T.-Z. (1981). The development of syntax in the child with special reference to
German [Special issue]. Innsbrucker Beitrage zur Kulturwissenschajt, 45.
Pateman, T. (1982). MacKay on singular they (discussion). Language in SOciety, 11,
437 - 438.
Pechmann, Th., & Deutsch, W. (1982). The development of verbal and nonverbal de-
vices for reference. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 34, 330 - 341.
Peters, A. M. (1986). Language segmentation: Operating principles for the perception
and analysis of language. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language
acquisition (Vol. 2). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Petzold, L. (1971, October). Rezension zu Ernest Bornemann: Sex irn Volksmund.
Wissenschajtlicher Literaturanzeiger, 5, 176.
Piaget, J. (1959). The language and thought of the child (3rd ed.). London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
Pinker, S. (1982). A theory of the acquisition of lexical interpretive grammars. In J.
Bresnan (Ed.), The mental representation oj grammatical relations (pp. 654 ~ 726).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pinker, S. (1985). Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Pinxten, R. (1976). Epistemic universals. In R. Pinxten (Ed.). Universalism versus rela-
tivism: Language and thought (pp. 117 -176). The Hague: Mouton.
Polzin, A. (1903). Geschlechtswandel der Substantiva im Deutschen (mit Einschll(/! der
L ~ h n - und Fremdworte). Hildesheim: Gerstenberg.
Poplack, S., Ponsada, A., & Sankoff, D. (1982). Competing influences on gender as-
signment: Variable process, stable outcome. Lingua, 57, 1- 28.
Popova, M. 1. (1958). Grammaticeskie Olementy jazyka v reci detej preddosKol'nogo
vozrasta' [Grammatical elements of language in the speech of pre-pre-school chil-
dren]. VoprosyPsichot, 3,106-117. [English abstract byD. 1. Slobin. InF. Smith
& G. A. Miller (Eds.), (1966), The genesis of language (p. 139). Cambridge: MIT
Press].
Preyer, W. (1882). Die Seele des Kindes. Leipzig: Grieben.
164
References
Pusch, L. F. (1980a), Das Deutsche als Mannersprache: Diagnose und Therapievor-
schlage: Linguistische Berichte, 69, 59 -74.
Pusch, L. F. (1980b). Die rnannliche Gruppe als referenzsemantische Grundeinheit.
LAB Berlin (West), 15, 178-181.
Salis, J. R. von (1952). Rainer Maria Rilkes Schweizer Jahre. Frauenfeld: Huber.
Sapir, E. (1944). A study in semantics. Philosophy oj Science, 11, 93 -116.
Sapir, E. (1949). Language. An introduction to the study oj speech. Harvest: New
York.
Schaner-Wolles, C. (1978). Der Gebrauch substantivischer Pluralallomorphe bei Kin-
dern mit Down-Syndrom. Wiener Linguistische Gazette, 18, 37 - 52.
Schlesinger. J. M. (1977). The role of cognitive development and lingllistic input in lan-
guage acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 4, 153 -169.
Schneider, J. W., & Hacker, S. L. (1973). Sex role imagery and the use of generic
"man" in introductory texts: A case in the sociology of sociology. The American
Sociologist,8,12-18.
Schneuwly, B. (1978). Zum Erwerb des Genus im Deutschen: Eine mogliche Strategie.
Manuscript, Max-Planck-Institut, Nijmegen, Holland.
Schulz, H., & Sundermeyer, W. (Eds.). (1974). Deutsche Sprachlehre jur Auslander.
Munchen: Max Hueber.
Scupin, E., & Scupin, G. (1907). Bubi's erste Kindheit (Vol. I). Leipzig: Durr.
Scupin, E., & Scupin, G. (1910). Bubi's erste Kindheit (Vol. 2). Leipzig: Durr.
Simmons, H. (1971). Problems of grammatical gender in German, with particular ref-
erence to English loanwords. Doctoral dissertation, Australian National University,
Canberra, Australia.
Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Heinamaki, O. (1979). When this very prestigious researcher
met Mrs. average housewife, or: Where have all the women gone ... Journal of
Pragmatics, 3, 507-519.
Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C. A.
Ferguson, & D. I. Slobin (Eds.) Studies oj child language development (pp.
175-276). New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
Slobin, D. I. (1986a). Introduction: Why study acquisition crosslinguistically? In D. I.
Slobin (Ed.) The crosslinguistic study oj language acquisition (Vol. I). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Slobin, D. I. (1986b). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In
D.1. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study oj language acquisition (Vol. 2).
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Smoczynska, M. (1986). Acquisition of Polish. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguis-
tic study of language acquisition (Vol. 1). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Spender, D. (1980). Man made language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Spiewok, W: (1975). Semantische Konsequenzen morphologischer Dubletten beim
deutschen Substantiv. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 12, 164 -169.
Stern, C., & Stern, W. (1909). Die Kindersprache: Eine psychologische und sprachtheo-
retische Untersuchung (4th rev. ed. 1928). Leipzig: Barth. (Monographien aber die
seelische Entwicklung des Kindes, Vol. 1. Reprinted 1965, Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-
liche Buchgesellschaft).
Surridge, M. E. (1982). L'attribution du genre grammatical aux emprunts angiais en
canadien: Le role des homologues et des monosyllables. Glossa, 16 (1),
28 - 39.
Surridge, M. E. (1984). Le genre grammatical des emprunts angiais en La per-
spective diachronique. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 29 (1), 58 -72.
References
165
Taeschner, T. (1983). The sun isfeminine. A study on language acquisition in bilingual
children. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Tokyo: Springer-Verlag.
Talmy, L. (1978). Relation of grammar to cognition. In D. Walz (Ed.), Proceedings
oj TINLAP-2. Champaign, ILH: Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of
Illinois.
Talmy. L. (1983). How languages structure space. In H. Pick, & L. Acredolo (Eds.),
Spatial orientation: Theory, research and application. New York: Plenum.
Talmy, L. (1986). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical form. In T.
Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic descriptions. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Tamburello, M. (1980). Sexism in the Italian Language. Osnabriicker Bettrage zur
Sprachtheorie, 15, 154-166.
Thavenius, C. (1983). Referential pronouns in English conversation (Lund Studies in
English, Vol. 64). Gleerup: CWK.
Tramel-PlOtz, S. (1980). Sexismus in der englischen Sprache. Eng/isch-Amerikanische
Studien,2,189-204.
TrudgiIl, P. (1975). Sex, covert prestige, and linguistic change in the urban British Eng-
lish of Norwich. In B. Thorne, & N. Henley (Eds.), Language and sex: Difference
and dominance (pp. 88 -104). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Tucker, G. R., Lambert, W. E., Rigauit, A., & Segalowitz, N. (1968). A psychological
investigation of French speakers' skill with grammatical gender. Journal of Verbal
Learning and Verbal Behavior, 7, 312 - 316.
Tucker, G. R., Lambert, W. E., & Rigault, A. (1977). The French speaker's skill with
grammatical gender: An example of rule-governed behavior. The Hague: Mou-
ton.
Vachek, J. (1964). Notes on gender in modern English. Sbornik Prac{ Filosoficke
Fakulty Brnenenske University, A12, 189-194.
Vachek, J. (1966). The linguistic school oj Prague. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univer-
sity Press.
Valentine, T. (1983). Sexism in Hindi: Form, function and variation. Studies in the
Linguistic Sciences, 13 (2), 143 -158.
Vetterling-Braggin, M. (Ed.). (1981). Sexist language: A modern philosophical analy-
sis. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams.
Viereck, K. (1980). Englisches Wortgut, seine Haufigkeit und Integration in der oster-
reichischen und bundesdeutschen Pressesprache. (Bamberger Beitrage zur Eng/i-
schen Sprachwissenschaft. Vol. 8). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Weinreich, U. (1968). Languages in contact: Findings and problems (6th ed.). The
Hague: Mouton.
Wells, O. (1981). Learning through interaction: The study of language development.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Werner, O. (1975). Zurn Genus im Deutschen. Deutsche Sprache: Zeitschriftfur Theo-
rie, Praxis, Dokumentation. 1, 35 - 58.
Werth, P. (1984). Focus, coherence and emphasis: Mechanisms of discourse. London,
Croom Helm.
Wheeler, B. I. (1898). The origin of grammatical gender. Journal oj English and Ger-
manic Philology, 2, 528 - 545.
Whorf, B. L. (1952). The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. Col-
lected Papers on Metalinguistics. Washington D. C. Foreign Service Institute, Dept.
of State.
166 References
Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought and reality, Selected writings of Benjamin Lee
Whorf(Edited and with an introduction by John B. Carroll). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Wienold, G. (1967). Genus und Semantik. Konigstein im Taunus: Anton Hain Meisen-
heim.
Wade, H. (1971). Some stages in the acquisition of questions by monolingual children.
Word, 27, 261- 310.
Wurzel, W. E. (1984). Flexionsmorphologie und Nattirlichkeit: Ein Beitrag zur mor-
phologischen Theorienbildung (Studia Grammatica, Vol. 21). Berlin: Akademie.
Yaguello, M. (1978). Les mots et les femmes. Paris: Payot.
Zubin, D. A. (1979). Discourse function of morphology: The focus system in German.
In T. Givan (Ed.). Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 12, pp. 469- 504). New York: Semi-
nar.
Zubin, D. A., Kopcke, K.-M. (1981). Gender: A less than arbitrary grammatical cate-
gory. In R. A. Hendrick, C. S. Masek, & M. F. Miller (Eds.), Papers from the
Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 439 - 449). ChIca-
go, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Zubin D., Kopcke, K.-M. (1982). Affect classification in the German gender system.
Manuscript, University of New York at Buffalo and University of Hannover, Feder-
al Republic of Germany.
Zubin, D. A., K6pcke, K.-M. (1983). Semantic categorization efoouns in the German
gender system. Paper presented to the Conference on Noun Classification, Eugene,
October 1983.
Subject and Author Index
Abbott E. A. 24
accusative case 64,67-69, see case
acquisition
explanatory theories of 1-2,8,
lO9-li5
of animacy rule 86-98
of formal rules 62-85
of gender 61-116
of natural gender rule 98-109
adjective 52,61,63,65,109
declensions 13-15
affective context 97, see emotional
markedness
age, and gender 52,56,91-93,
lO3-lO4,127-128
agreement 9, 10, 13, see also cohe-
sion, congruence
Algonkian 6
Altmann G. 32
analogy 47-50
, anaphoric reference 38, see also pro-
nouns
Angermaier M. J. W. 4
animacy 5,7,9,23-24,29-30,
53-55,62,77, 115, 120-121
acquisition of 86-98
rule of 17-20,143
Apache li8
Arabic 134-13 5
Arndt W. W. 32, 44, 50
articles 36-37,52,61,73,84,99, lOl,
lO7-1lO, li3, 115
definite 62,63,74,80,85,88, 112
experimental testing of 78-79
gender marking on 13-14
indefinite 62,63,67,74,83,85,112
association, gender and 47-50,70,
72,81-83
Atkinson M. 2
Ausbiittel E. 24
AveryD. 59
avoidance strategy 67
awareness of gender, see metalinguistic
awareness
Bach E. li8
Baetens-Beardsmore H. 44
Barbaud P. 44
Baron J. lOO-lOl
Baron N. 13, 24
Bates E. 3,7
Bauch H. J. 32,53
Beit-Hallami B. 98
Berman R. il2
bilingualism lO6
Bindseil H. E. 7
Bloomfield L. 6
Bohme K. lO5 -lO6, lO8
Bornemann E. 53-55
Brener R. 89, lOO-lOl
Brinkmann H. 18
Brown R. 86, li8
Brugmann K. 7
Brunner K. 13
Carstensen B. 44, 50
case 61,63-64,77, lO6, 115
accusative 13-15,64,67-69
dative 13-15,99,106, lO8, III
genitive 13-15
marking of 13-14
nominative 13-15,64,67-69,113
168
Chiat S. 100
children's literature 52,55-57,59,
87,93,120-122,140
Chinese 6
Chomsky N. 2, 8-9
C1ahsen H. 2,4,63,86-87
Clark E. V. 11, 112
Clark H. H. 36, 118
Clarke M. A. 134-135
classification systems 140-141, see
also noun classification systems
clear rule, notion of 114-115,144
Clyne M. 47, 50
cognitive development and lan-
guage 2,29,98-99,107,118,143
cohesion, syntagmatic 37
common gender 29-30,41,44,
55-56,115,121,143
rule of 20-23, 55
acquisition 86-98
comprehension
and production 104,108-109, 116
of pronouns 100-101,105
Comrie B. 6
congruence 7,61, see also agreement,
cohesion
content, anticipation of 36
contrast 40-41, 106
convention 26, 138
CorbettG. 51
Coseriu E. 8, 118
Cromer R. 12
cross-linguistic investigation 1, 110,
115
cross-sectional studies 5, 100
Curme G. O. 19,32,52
Dani 118
dative case, see case
de Vi1liers J. G. and de Villiers P. A. 4
deictic reference 38-39
demonstrative pronouns, see pronouns
derivational suffixes 30-31,44,
72-74
Deutsch W. 65,99,106,108
dialect 35,47,76-77
diminutive suffixes 30-31,53-54,73
disassociation with gender 32
distributional patterns 62,85, 111,115
Donaldson M. 11
Dutch 44
Subject Index
endings, see phonetic rules
Engels B. 43
English
acquisition of 1,4
gender system of 5, 12-42
parts of speech marked for gen-
der 13-15
pronouns, frequency of 55-57, see
also acquisition, gender
Ervin-Tripp S. 138-139
exceptions 29,33,49-50,81,83, 112,
114-116
experimental data 5,74,115
on animacy rule 90-98
on definite articles 67-69
on formal rules 77-85
on indefinite articles 65-66
on natural gender rule 101-109
on phonetic rules 45-50,59,61,
120
on sex assignment 122-130
explanatory theories, in child language
62, 109-115
feminine gender
and animacy 18-20
development of 7
markedness of 10
marking of 13-15, see gender
Finnish 6
Fodor r. 7
form and function, see function
formal rules, acquisition of 62-85,
99, 109-113, see phonetic rules and
morphological rules
French 8,10,43-44,51,57,93-94,
112
frequency 55-57,63,71,84, 114, 143
functions 3,36-42,108
and fann 13, 65, see one form-one
function principle, plurification
of nOun classification sys-
tems 6-7
Gabelentz G. v. d. 52
Galinsky H. 43
Subject Index
gender
and linguistic description 4,6-11
arbitrary classification 41
concept of 98, 108-11 0
definition of 6
ontology of 6-8
origins of 36, 119
paradigms 13,63-65,83,85, 100,
108, 110, 112, 115, see also distri-
butional patterns
parts of speech affected by 13-15
system 1,4,7-8,12-42,61,109,
112, 119, see also animacy rule,
loan words, morphological ru.les,
personal rule, personification
rule, natural gender rule, se-
mantic rules
generic terms 53-59, 104, 107-108
German
acquisition of I, 4
distribution of gender in 32
gender system of 5,7,9-10,
12-42
metaphors in 53-55
parts of speech affected by gender
13-15 see acquisition, gender
GillW.S. 121,130
Gipper H. 118
Givan T. 8
Glahn N. von 13
Gleitman L. 109
Goggin J. 45
Gopnik A. 3
grammatical gender
and natural gender 41,93, 105
and sex assignment 120-130
and sex attributes 134-140
conflict with semantic rules 51-54
Greenberg J. 11,99
Greenfield P. 2
Greenhalgh S. 89
Gregor B. 50
Grimm H. 4,76
GrimmJ. 7
Guentherodt r. 59
Guiora A. Z. 134-135
Gvozdev A. N. 86
Hall R. 16
Hawkins J. 12
Hebrew 112, 134
Heider-Rosch E. 118
Hellinger M. 58
Herder J. G. 7
Herold A. L. 135
hierarchy
of endings 84
of rules 9,34-35,42,51
Hindi 57
Hjelmslev L. 9,17,38, 140
Hofstiitter P. 130, 135, 138
hypernym 10, 18,22
Ibrahim M. H. 7, 50
Icelandic 106-107, 113
inanimacy, see animacy
Indo-European 6-7,16
Indo-Germanic 9
innate principles 3,8,110, 143 see
explanatory theories oflanguage
acquisition
input 35,93,98, 115
169
interaction, related to language acqui-
sition 3
interaction of rules 109-113 see also
hierarchy
interrogative pronouns see pronouns
Ioffe V. V. 7
Italian 57, 135, 138-139
Jakobsen B. 10
J ako bson R. 6
Japanese lJ8
Jarnatowskaja V. E. 13
Jespersen O. 13,140
Joly A. 24-25
Karmiloff-Smith A. 3,93, 107, 112
Karpf F. 24
Katz J. 8
Kleinke C. L. 54
Kopcke K.-M. 16,20-21,26-29,
31-34,36-38,45-50,74,78,82,
110, 114, 120
Kuroda S.-Y. 41
Kutter U. 53
170
LakoffR. 57
LangA. 51
Lang E. 40
Langenfelt O. 24
language
and thought 5,117-120
change 29
language acquisition, see acq uisition
Last member principle, see noun carow
pounds
Latin 43-44, 51
Lehrer A. II
Levy Y. 98-99,105, 107, 112
lexicon 72-73, 113-116
entry in 9
equivalents in 50
organisation of 26-29,37-38
status in 33,50,59,114
structure 12
Lienert O. 91
linguistic description
and gender 6-11
related to language acqui-
sition 142-143
literature, see children's literature
loan words, gender of 43-45,50-51,
59
Lohmann 1. 16
longitudinal data
Lutzmann K. 53
Lyons J. 9, II
5,63,85, 100
Mackay D. O. 59
MacWhinney B. 83-84, 105
male dominance 57-58,120-122
MaratsosM. 9,41,62,85,111-112
markedness 4,9-11, 18,89,99,
104-105,109,116,142-143
distributional 10
Mater E. 32,70,84
Mathiot M. 25,97
Meillet A. 6-7
Subject Index
metalinguistic awareness 88,106,108
metaphor, gender in 53-55, 59, 120
Middle English 24, 43
Miller C. 55
Miller M. 3,65
Mills A. E. 3-4,64,75,86
MohnD. 53
morphological changes 13,24
morphological rules 9, 14,26,29-31,
34-35,41,59,61,74,99
psychological status of 43-50
morphology 12
Morsbach L. 24
Moulton J. 58
Mugdan J. 75
Mulford R. 106-107, 113
Nalibow K. L. 57
Nash R. 57
nativist approach 2-3, see innate
principles
natural gender 5,44,59-60,94, 120
rule of 1,16-17,29-31,41-42,
51-55,59,61-62,115,142
acquisition 98-109,120
natural sex 6, see natural gender
negative poles 25-26, see affective
context, positive poles
neuter gender
and common gender 20-23,87
and inanimacy 18-20,86,88,94,
115
Nilsen A. 58
nominative case, see case
noun
gender marking on 7 emotional 25
psycholinguistic aspects of
semantic 10
11,57-59 with two genders 35
Martinet A. 6, 8
Martyna W. 58
masculine gender
and animacy 18-20
and common gender 21-23
and markedness 10
noun classification systems
36
functions of 6-7
8-9,16,
systems of 6, see also classification
systems, gender systems
noun compounds 30-31,37,72-74
noun phrase, marking onset of 36-37
number 63, see also plural
Subject Index
object 106, see case
observational data 5,115
on animacy and common gen-
der 87-89
on formal rules 63-77
" on natural gender 99-10 I
Ohmann E. 50
Old English 13, 24
omission
of article 67-68
of gender marking 115
one form-one function principle 93,
115, 143, see functions
opposition 9-11
male/female 39-41
neutralization of 10
semantic 39-41
Osgood C. 130, 138
overgeneralization 65,67,89,100,
104-105, 108
Palsdottir M. 107
paradigm, see distributional patterns,
gender paradigm
Park T. Z. 64-65
part of speech
gender marking on 2, see gender
influence of 106
Patemann T. 59
Pechmann T. 65
perception of objects, see sex-related
features
person 13-14,107
III pronouns 101
personal rule 17 - 20
personification 93, 121, 140, see also
metaphor
rule of 23-26,95-98,115
Peters A. 107
Petzold L. 53
phonetic cue 113
phonetic regularities 72
phonetic rules 9, 14,28, 59, 62,
70-73,78,99,105-107,110-115
acquisition of 63-77,79-85
description of 32-35,41
psychological status of 43-50
phonetic similarities 142
171
phonological change 13,24
PiagetJ. 2
Pinker S. 8, 110-112
Pinxten R. 118
plural
acquisition of 68-69,75,85
description of 13-15
gender and 37,74-75,115
plurifunction 14, 113, see also func-
tion and form
Polish 57,83,112
Poplack S. 34-35
Popova M. 1. 83
positive poles 25-26, see also affect-
ive context, negative poles
possessive function III
possessive pronouns, see pronouns
pragmatic factors 22, 106
pragmatic rules 34-35,41
Preyer W. 63,67
production task 90-97,101-108, see
comprehension
pronouns 36-41,61,63,83,85,99,
124, 142
acquisition of 100, 107-113, 115,
121
comprehension of 100-10 I, 105
demonstrative 7,17-20,87
function of 113
generic 58, see generic terms
indefinite 17-19,22
personal 51-53,62, III
possessive 105-106
production of 101-108
relative 17-19,51-52,62,75-77
psychological factors in gender
use 24-26
psychological gender 5,117-141
PuschL. 57-58
question words 75-76, see pro,nouns
interrogative
reduced forms
regularization
eralization
63-65,68
112, see also overgen-
relative pronouns, see pronouns
172
rhyme 24,49
rote learning 9,41,78, 100
rules
and speaker's behaviour 43-60
categoria! 114
exceptions to, see exceptions
hierarchy of, see hierarchy
psychological status of, see psycho-
logical reality
relative strength of 35
scope of 32,62-63, 112, 114, 116
status of 61,112, 114, see formal
rules, morphological rules, pho-
netic rules, semantic rules
Russian 6, 51, 83
Sapir E. 117, 119
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 117-120,
141
Schaner-Walles C. 67,75
Schlesinger J. M. 108
Schneider J. W. 58
Schneuwly B. 67, 71, 84
Schulz H. 26
Scupin E. and Scupin G. 63-65,67,
71-72
self-corrections 65,69
semantic differential 130-140
semantic features 8, 16
semantic fields 24,26-29,44, 87
semantic primacy principle 109-110
semantic rules 5,9-10,14,16-31,
33-35,41-42,61-62,74,109-113
psychological status of 50-57, see
animacy rule, common gender
fule, natural gender rule
sex 7,9, see natural gender
sex assignment 88,137-140
and grammatical gender 120-130
sex attributes
and sex assignment 137-140
perception of 5,7,25-26,
117-120
testing of 130-140
sex of subjects as factor 52, 58, 96,
103-104,109, 116, 127-128,
133-134
sex stereotypes 93, 121, 123, 134
Subject Index
Simmons H. 44
Siobin D. I. 1,3,63,69,83,86,89,
109-110,115,144
Smoczynska M. 83,86
Spanish 16,45,51,57,112
speaker's behaviour 43-60
Spender D. 58
Stern W. and Stern C. 1,4,6,63-65,
67,75
stress 41
style, and use of gender 17,35,56,
93-98, 121-122, 127-140
subject 106, Ill, see case nominative
subject's sex, see sex of subjects
superordinate terms 20-21,26-27,
30,87
Surridge M. E. 44
Swiss-German 68,84
syllabacity 32-33,44,81,83, see also
phonetic rules
Talmy L. 110
Tamburello M. 57
Thavenius C. 55
they, use of singular 23,59, see com-
mon gender, generic terms
Tromel-Ploetz S. 57
Trudgill P. 47
Tucker G. R. 112
universals
language 6,8,118
language acquisition 2,114,116
Vachek J. 10,25-26,93
Valentine T. 57
van der Geest T. 109
Viereck K. 43
vocabulary 68,71-72,74,78-79, see
lexicon
Weinrich U. 43
Wells G. 3
WemerO. 13
Werth P. 40
Wheeler B. I. 7
WhorfB. L. 117-118, see Sapir-
Whorfhypothesis
Wienold G. 6, 38, 140
Subject Index
Wurzel W. 74
Yaguello M. 57
173
Zubin, D. 16,20-21,26-29,31,34,
36-38,45-50,83,86,114,120

(Springer Series in Language and Communication) Anne E. Mills-The Acquisition of Gender - A Study of English and German - Springer (1986)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

(Springer Series in Language and Communication) Anne E. Mills-The Acquisition of Gender - A Study of English and German - Springer (1986)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Springer Series in Language and Communication 20

You might also like